Josh Thompson – Irish Youth (U18) Singles Champion 2023

Massive congratulations to 15 year old Donaghadee player Josh Thompson after lifting the Irish Youth (U18) Singles title yesterday at the Irish National Championships Finals played at Belmont Bowling Club, defeating 14 year old Alex Jones from Ballymoney by 21 shots to 11.
This outcome seemed somewhat very unlikely early on with Josh trailing by a significant 10-0 shot deficient but in a marvellous turnaround Josh dug in deep, scoring an outstanding 21 shots to only a single reply.
We wish Josh every success as he represents Ireland in next year’s British Isles Championships in Leamington Spa.

In the earlier Junior (U25) Singles final, Cameron Gaw, again from the Donaghadee Club, was involved in a magnificent game of precision drawing bowls against Jack A Moffett, now with Dunbarton, but unfortunately was unsuccessful, losing 16-21. Well done to both these players for giving the spectators such a marvelous match to watch.

The lads from Bangor, Jackie Erskine, Aaron Patterson and Matthew Crawford contested the Triples Final in the afternoon session against the triple skipped by Simon Martin from the host club Belmont, unfortunately going down 20-26.

Other results involving NIBA players from the Semi Final stages played on Friday.

David Ball (Donaghadee) 13 v 21 Ross McMullan (Limavady), Open Singles.
Ryan & Iain Gingles (Curran) 16 v 24 Paul Daly & Simon Martin (Belmont), Pairs.
Daryl Perkins, Graeme McKee, Lee Carson & Thomas McClean (Sydenham) 13 v 17 Jayden Kyle, Ronnie Enyin, Darren Witherspoon & Alan McClean (Larne), Fours.
Sean Mullen, James Caldwell, Dessie Hill & Stephen Moran (Whitehead) 13 v 17 Norman Thompson, Roy Battersby, David Corkill & Raymond Barr (Belmont), Senior Fours.

Congratulations and well done to ALL our representatives in this year’s Irish National Championships.