Colchester Indoor Bowls Club suffered heavy defeats to stronger teams in the first rounds of two national competitions.

In the Denny Plate Cup, Colchester met Essex County Bowls Club at home and away.

They fared fairly well on the home rinks, winning on both, 23-16 and 18-17.

This gave them an overall shot count of 41-33 at home.

Away from home things did not go as well.

They lost on both rinks, by 22-8 and 34-15, and by 56-23 overall on the away leg.

The combined overall scores gave the game to Essex County by 89-64.

In the National Under-25s first round, Colchester really battled in the home rink, losing 43-10.

On the away rink CIBC skip Josh Jenner and his team, Kieron Hall, Bradly Hall and Daniel Roger had a 26-18 victory.

After a very bright start they led 6-0 after four ends only to find themselves down 11-6 after seven ends.

Fortunately normal service was resumed on the 11th end when they regained the lead which they held to the end.

Overall Ipswich won the round 61-36.