HAMPSHIRE’S county short mat bowls squad’s eagerly anticipated trip to Northern Ireland failed to produce any trophies.

Always the minnows in a pool of big fish, the Hampshire side – representing England – were not cowed by the opposition at any point.

But a bruising first session against hosts Oriel set the tone for the rest of the tournament.

To put the calibre of Hampshire’s opponents in context, Pembrokeshire have won their Welsh County Championship title 13 times in 23 years and Oriel were looking for back-to-back wins having won this Top Team Challenge trophy last year in Cheshire.

The first session was the normal Inter-County format (designated “individuals” throughout the tournament) being two singles, two pairs, two triples and two fours disciplines.

The matches were all played at the same time across eight mats and the closest Hampshire got to points was a 10-14 defeat for Steve Puttock and a defeat of 11-13 for Jason McLean in the singles.

Close Hampshire played in the second session too and in the same “individuals” format, against Pembrokeshire.

Puttock won 14-7, McLean won 19-11, David White and Wendy Ford won 14-13 and Callum Goodman & Leah Wood drew 11-11.

The triples and fours both lost and, although the scores were close, overall the match was lost 7-9 on points.

The third session saw Oriel playing Pembroke. Oriel won this match 13 points to 3.

Hampshire played Oriel in the first of the team event of fours, which although not realised beforehand was generally considered afterwards to be a lesson in bowling for Hampshire.

It was only the rinks of James Bucknall (skipping Anita Bucknall, Tony Gepp and Ben Cherry) and Ian Ford (skipping Wendy Ford, Greg Puttock and David White) that picked up any points at all – the scores being 10-8 and 6-5 respectively.

The final session of this intense day of bowls saw Hampshire playing Pembrokeshire in the team event and again Ian Ford’s rink picked up points with the rink skipped by Steve Puttock (Gina Allen, George Cherry and Mike Wright) adding to the County’s tally, scores being 6-5 and 10-5 respectively.

Martyn Dubb’s rink could have added to this but lost 10-9 on a measure.

Hampshire took on Oriel again in the reverse of the first match, but it was only Goodman and Wood that picked up any points with a 15-10 win.

In the reverse of the Hampshire’s second match of the previous day, Steve Puttock again picked up points in a win of 18-14 against Pembrokeshire.

Jason McLean lost 12-14 having been holding game until his opponent’s last wood had been delivered.

Ford’s triple (George Cherry and Greg Puttock) was the only other winner (11-10) in this final session for Hampshire.

It was the 20th year of this triangular competition having been run and in all that time it has only been won by two non-Irish teams (Staffordshire in 1997 and Cheshire in 2011) – on both occasions when being played in England.