Armagh knew they had to 'up' their game after a disappointing performance in last years final and thats just exactly what they did.
On mat 1 Oriel had no answer to Elizabeth Smyth's rink of Agnes Crozier, Ann Patton and Hilary Agnew. The Armagh rink played excellent bowls throughout and proved far to strong for J Roullier's rink and ran away with a 21-3 victory.
On mat 2 Mary Livingstone, Rosemary Beattie, Sandra Whittle and Rachel Cassells had a slow start and after 5 ends were 1-7 down against B Cunningham and her rink. The Armagh ladies never gave up and fought their way back to come away with an excellent 9-7 win.
Mat 3 saw a tight tussle between Armagh's Marlene Hobson, Michelle wright, Diane Agnew and May Cassells who took on Oriel's R Brennan. With good bowls played by both rinks, nothing could separate the 2 rinks after 10 ends ending up 9-9 draw, leaving Armagh with a 20 shot lead at the break.
Half Time
Armagh 39-19 Oriel
After a brilliant performance from Armagh's 1st half rinks all Armagh had to do was to keep things tight..but instead the pulled out the stops to add a further 24 shots to the final score.
On mat 4 Flo McNally's rink of Ann Crozier, Goretti Garvey and Jean Hawthorne took on Emma Colgan and her rink. After 9 ends Flo was leading 9-5 but a lift of 7 in the last end saw Flo's quartet ending up 16-5 winners.
Christina Breen, Elizabeth Lavery, Daphne Marshall and Pauline Beattie took on Carol McMahon and her rink on mat 5. The Armagh Ladies proved too strong for the Oriel rink and with the help of a 6 on the 7th end the Armagh foursome came away with a 13-2 victory with 2 ends to spare.
The final game of the day was between Catherine McMillen and her rink of Sophia Minish, Linda Milligan and Sadie White against Patricia Hanlon's quartet. Catherine and her rink played excellent bowls and had a tight battle with the Oriel rink but finished 8-6 up with an end to spare giving Armagh a fantastic 44 shot victory 76-32.
It was Armagh Ladies turn for revenge this year but the game was played in great spirit and in a great sporting manor and that was a credit to both teams.
Armagh will now travel away to East Antrim on Sat 30th November.
