Honour for West Lothian trio after cap call

Three West Lothian IBC stars have been named in the 26-strong squad to represent Scotland in the gents’Home International series to be played at Falcon IBC in Essex in March.

Neil Speirs and Mark Allison feature in the six-rink selection for the opening match while Bryan Cooper has a presence on the reserve bench.

Speirs adds to his 42 caps and plays third to Iain McLean of Blantyre, while Allison moves off the 21 mark and plays second to McLean with Falkirk’s Martin McCalley taking lead.

Cooper will be aiming to add to his tally of 12 international caps.

West Lothian gents will go into the final straight of their Premier League campaign in the new year flirting with the relegation zone as the stars from the Inveralmond Stadium suffered a fourth defeat in seven when losing away to Falkirk.

The task of inflicting a first defeat on the undefeated section A leaders proved beyond the hot-and-cold blowing visitors and a 12 -shot setback (80-68) has left the Livingston side occupying the third-bottom rung with six points to the four of Aberdeen and zero of Elgin.

The rink scores were: Steven Allan 14 James Speirs 18; Gary Flynn 22 Calum Logan 21; Steven Glen 23 Craig Moss 16; Martin McCalley 21 Neil Speirs 13.

West Lothian entertain Aberdeen in the first match of the resumption on Saturday, January 12 , then continue at home against Lanarkshire before finishing with an away visit to Elgin – optimistically all very winnable games.

Jimmy Mallon returned to the Balbardie gents team in place of Iain Grant against Coatbridge at the Park of Peace Stadium in Bathgate where a disappointing outcome saw the home team suffer an 81-74 defeat.

Sadly it was a massive opportunity missed for Balbardie to move on to safer ground in Division 1 North as they now sit third from bottom with five points to the four of Headwell and three of Dundee.

Their schedule in the new year is away to Dundee, at home to current leaders Fraserburgh, then away to Cumbernauld, and they will be hoping to pick up the points needed.

Balbardie ladies suffered a heavy 70-47 defeat on their away visit to Division 1 East leaders Bainfield and there is no hope of them gaining promotion to the Premier League. WL ladies, foot of the table and candidates for relegation, were idle last weekend.