COURTAULDS Halstead Bowls Club's B team Brenda Mandry held her nerve to secure an extra-end triumph and set up a clash against the club's A side in the Tony Allcock National Trophy.

They were facing Bocking Alliance at Halstead on two rinks over 18 ends.

The team of Sue Guthrie, Gwen Davies, Terry Reynolds and skip Tony Jones, started tentatively as Bocking opend up a six-shot advantage by the seventh end.

With an impressive turnaround, though, the Courtaulds quartet captured three shots on the ninth end and four shots on the 11th and held a 17-13 lead by the 14th end.

They were unable to keep up that momentum in the closing stages, though, and lost by one shot in a 22-21 defeat.

A single-shot advantage to Bocking meant that, Eric Marson, Mandry, Barbara Jones and skip Roy Clemence had to win by more than two shots to go through to the next round.

This game ebb and flowed, throughout the first half, but Bocking opened up a five-shot advantage at 9-4 and the Courtaulds quartet knew they had to start winning ends, to save the match.

Another impressive turnaround was staged and they cruised through to a four shots advantage, by the 17th end and although Bocking quartet, started to pull back the deficit, Halstead won by by one shot.

That meant the match ended all square and had to go into an extra end to be decided.

With Mandry playing second player, her first wood was aimed directly at the jack.

It stayed on course and landed on to the jack to win the match for Courtaulds.