On behalf of everyone at the club can we once again congratulate Sam Barkley, and Robert and Stephen Kirkwood on their selection to the Private Greens Under 25 team that competed last weekend at Belmont Bowling Club in the Junior Inter-association series.  Having won the series in 2014 the PGL team were determined to defend their crown and started with an impressive 98 shot win over the BLI – winning 143- 45; with both Stephen and Robert’s rinks posting impressive scores of 44-8 and 34-14 respectively.  Saturday morning renewed old rivalries with the NIBA and it was the Parks team that was edging it for most of the game.  However, a late flourish of shots across the green from the PGL team saw them triumph over by a 5 shot margin.  On this occasion Stephen’s rink came off second best with a 13-21 defeat and Robert’s rink winning a tough game 28-22.  This left the PGL team needing a minimum of 2 points against the NIPBA to secure outright victory in the series.  Saturday afternoon’s game was another tough affair against the Provincials and actually saw the PGL team lose the game overall going down 76 – 72 shots but with victories for Stephen Kirkwood and Darren Atkinson’s rinks and a draw between Robert Kirkwood and Aaron Tennant the PGL team secured 2.5 points to win the series overall.  On Saturday evening the Junior Irish Team was selected and again on behalf of the club can we congratulate Robert Kirkwood on his selection as he now goes to Oxford in September to compete in the British Isles Under 25 series.  Stephen Kirkwood is obviously otherwise engaged at this time as he will be competing in the Youth Commonwealth Games in Samoa but we have every confidence he will be back representing Ireland in 2016.   With the number of young players at Old Bleach we are confident that it will not be too long before we see a few more representing the club at inter-association and international level.