WIRRAL bowlers dominated the later stages of the Merseyside Merit Tournament held at the Unison Club in St Helens on Saturday, and at the end of a great day's play it was Tixall's Nigel Hughes who beat the opposition and the terrible weather to take the first prize.

In the quarter finals Hughes just beat John Ashcroft of Birchley St Mary’s, 21-19, before he dominated his semi final game against Gladstone's Jon Ellis and then in the final he came up against Stephen Glover who plays for New Brighton Quarry Vikings.

To reach the final Glover had already beaten the Richmond player, Jason Dermott, and another Gladstone player, Nick Burridge.

The final was a close game but Hughes finally triumphed 21-16 to become the 2014 Merseyside Champion.

Both Hughes and Glover will represent Merseyside in the British Senior Merit at the end of July in Yorkshire and Nigel Hughes also qualifies for the Champion of Champions Tournament at the end of the season.

The Bebington and District's George O'Neill Finals also had to cope with the terrible weather on Saturday.

This was played at the Albany club green and the winners were the Division 'A' team Gladstone who beat Kings 2000 from the 'B' division. In the semi finals Kings had got the better of Tixall while Gladstone beat the Lever Club.

On Sunday, the weather had relented somewhat for the Wallasey Association's Tom Bassnett Pairs Tournament and a good turnout of twenty pairs competed.

The winners, for the third time, were the father/son combination of Colin and Craig Saville who both play for New Brighton Queens Royal.

In their semi final game Saville and Saville beat the New Brighton Quarry Vikings pair Josh Bunting and Chris Barton, 21-11 while the other semi final was an all New Brighton Queens Royal affair in which Robbie Hall and Ray Lynch dominated against Dave Croston and Geoff Lynch winning 21-07.

The final was a closer contest but Colin and Craig Saville came through with a 21-17 victory.

It had been anticipated that the final of the Wallasey Association's Harold Jones final between New Brighton Queens Royal and West Kirby Victoria would be a close match and in the event there was never more than just a few points between the two teams.

At the end it came down to the last pairing on the green; the Queens Royal team had a lead of four points and this meant that to snatch victory the West Kirby player, Robbie Fitzpatrick, would have to win by five points.

Though at one stage in the match 12-09 down, incredibly this is what he managed to do, winning 21-16.

This gave an overall score of 226 to 225 and victory for West Kirby Victoria by just one point.

The best winner for The West Kirby team was Dave Gilmore with a 21-11 victory while Steve Scott's 21-14 was the best for New Brighton Queens Royal.