The first players from the five-year-old Denton Island club at Newhaven to qualify for a Sussex competition semi-final are Eric Gill, Paul Spicer and John Cox.

And they did it in such sensational style.

In the triples quarter-final at home to defending champions Roger Faithfull, Bernie Alcoe and Colin Brown of Worthing Pavilion, they lost the first four ends to seven shots, exchanged fours over the next two but were 17-7 down at 12 ends.

Two ends later the champions were still on a high, leading 18-8, but they then dropped 2,2,4,3 to lose 19-18. On their beloved rink six at Denton Cox drew three shots on the 17th and to make a count of four which meant three were needed for victory.

On the 18th end Brown drew a second bowl 14ins from the jack but could not improve on it and Cox drew two inch-perfect woods to clinch the place in the semi finals.

Teams in the Vilamoura Adur open mixed fours tournament next season will be competing for prizes to the value of £5,000.

This season those into the last 16 battling for £2,000 are: Ashley Dale (Adur) v Ivan Crouch (Adur); Clive Corbin (Adur) v Brian Gillam (Preston); Peter Clement (Adur) v Ray Potten (Worthing); Mike Gould (Denton) v Harry Willard (Adur); John Chubb (Adur) v Alban Morgan (Adur); Rod Jamieson, holder (Arun) v Alan Janman (Arun); Ken Twine (Adur) v Albert Kennard (Wealden); Bob Freeman (Prince Arthur) v Derek Stevens of Preston.

When the semi-finals and final are played on April 1 the same day Sussex, Berkshire, Hampshire, Kent, Middlesex and Surrey will take part in an inter-county tournament at Under 25s level.

Amedeu da Rocha, owner of the Vilamoura club in Portugal who are the tournament sponsors, will be at Adur for finals day.

Arun's Rod Jamieson and Wendy Adams in the national mixed fours inter-area play-off at Atherley dropped three shots on the first end to Kathryn Counsins and Julian Haines, of Bournemouth.

The Arun pair were always trailing and lost 24-9.