SHAUN Jones, who plays for Ross-on-Wye, gave the best performance by a Herefordshire male bowler for many years when he finished runner-up in the EBA National Under-18 Championship at Worthing.

The competition consisted of two events, the first being a series of coaching tests where points were awarded, and the second a straight bowling contest. The overall winner was the player best overall in both events.

After the coaching tests, Jones was 13th out of 32.

But once the bowls started, he played better with each game, beating Jon Head (Middlesex) by four, Richard Stoakes (York-shire) by two, and Kirsty Hembrow (Somerset) by six to qualify for the quarter-finals.

He then met Wayne Wilgress (Norfolk) and won by two before accounting for Andrew Voss (Dorset) by four shots in the semi-finals.

This set up the final against Daniel Morris (Surrey), who started the stronger, taking a 4-1 lead.

Then the most critical end was played and Jones held two shots with one wood to come and decided to draw for a third that would have put the scores level.

Unfortunately, the draw was on the perfect line but slightly heavy and he sprung the jack back to his opponent for two shots which left him 1-6 down. All rounds were played over seven ends and so Jones did not have time to recover.

But overall he finished a very good second to keep Herefordshire on the map.

l HEREFORDSHIRE won only two rinks in a 146-96 home defeat to Gloucester-shire at Eastnor.

Ray Walker skipped one winning rink in achieving a 21-14 victory, and the other rink was skipped by Vince Ledbury, winning 13 ends in a 26-23 success.

Jack Gray's rink led 10-8 at the halfway stage, but were beaten 22-14, while the rink skipped by Colin Reading finished 25-11 down.

The rink skipped by David White were defeated 29-11, and the heaviest defeat was suffered by R Johnson who lost 33-13.