Oxfordshire's Alan Ley and Mike Petersen suffered an agonising 20-18 defeat in the Bowls England Men’s National Senior Pairs Championship final at Royal Leamington Spa.

Holding a one-shot advantage going into the last end of their clash with Derbyshire’s Les Jinks and Dave Brennan, the Oxford City & County duo dropped three shots to finish runners-up.

Ley said: “We led all the way up until the very last end and lost it.

“We had mixed emotions really. We were very pleased that we got there and very disappointed to lose it by two shots at the end.”

Ley and Petersen had beaten Gloucestershire’s Vince Wilks and Dougie Lewis 21-13 in the semi-finals of the over 55s competition at Victoria Park.

In the last eight, the Oxford City & County pair eased past Middlesex’s Ron Edgar and David Pitt 24-15.

They had opened their challenge with a 27-18 victory against Leicestershire’s Michael Haywood and John Godden, before overcoming Peter Lowe and Colin Gray 18-11 in round two.

Watlington’s Sam Watts went out of the National Junior Singles Championship with a 21-17 defeat by Tristan Morton (Warboys, Huntingdonshire) in the second round.

He had beaten Joe Renshaw (Blaby, Leicestershire) 21-17 in the first round, where Banbury Borough’s George Schwab fell 21-12 to David Forster (Whitehaven).

OTHER RESULTS

Fours preliminary round: J Nicholls, I Henwood, J King & M Charlett 30 (Headington), D Wilson, J Yates, J Paveling & N Williams (Heaton Hall, Lancs) 20. 1st round: J Nicholls, I Henwood, J King & M Charlett 17, R Williams, S Salter, N Kunc & T Salter (Street, Somerset) 20; M Nash, N Rae, P Mabbutt & N Rae-Welsh (Headington) 18, K Harrison, P Irving, M Irwin & S Irwin (Aspatria, Cumbria) 21.

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