Holbrook had a 69-63 win at home set up by rink successes for skips Duane Crow and Gavin Jones.

There was little separating the two teams throughout, although Holbrook skip Robbie Philpott was down by about 10 shots at one stage against Gerald O’Brien.

But his rink knuckled down, closed the gap and eventually lost by just three.

Crow led by about six shots at the most against Norm Honey, but dropped four on the 16th end, which looked like it could be telling at the end.

Jones had a tough battle with Stephen Broad and finished up winning by four shots.

Two games had finished and it came down to the final end between Crow and Honey with North Albury needing three shots for victory.

But Crow produced a superb bowl to trail the kitty for four shots, taking it to a position where Honey could not get it.

Youngster Tommy Papworth was promoted to play third for Crow and produced a consistent display.

“We needed to get a win first up to give us a bit of confidence,” Crow said yesterday.

Crow is unavailable next week and Papworth will miss several weeks in February.

Culcairn lost all three rinks at Commercial Club, but the overall margin was just four shots in the home team’s favour.

Commercial’s Peter Smith had a 17-16 win against Jim Lee, Les Murphy was successful 18-17 against David Trebley and David Barnes had a 25-23 victory against Brian Watson.

Henty won by 11 shots against North Albury’s second team.

The rink skipped by stalwart Peter Forck was instrumental in Henty’s win.

Forck provided his team with an 11-shot buffer against Conan Trainor in a telling victory.

Kerry Boyle’s rink won by eight shots against North’s Bob Gough.

But that margin was nullified when the home team’s Col Dwyer managed to win by eight shots against Kim Maher.