South Hams rivals Stoke Fleming and Kingsbridge Park battled for a place at the Bowls Devon finals of the men's fours, writes Tony Atkins.

On the day, Devon U21 hopefuls Luke Bryant and Joel Jordan led their rink to the final round of qualifying at Kings Torquay.

Skip Jordan had his grandfather Mike Jordan at two and Brian Horst at lead and, after beating clubmates Paul Lobb, Billy Ewing, Mark Jordan and Tony Andrew 18-13 in the semi-final in Group B, they were forced to bow down to England international Jamie Chestney 25-4 in the final.

The Kings skip had the support of Joe Melmore, Matt Bass and fellow international Sam Tolchard and were too strong for the plucky quartet from Stoke Fleming.

'They were just different class,' purred Joel Jordan, who, along with Luke Bryant, had impressed Tolchard.

On their way to this final eliminator for the county finals, they had beaten another Stoke Fleming rink of Haynes, Rowe, Wotton and Mike Hyne 28-11.

Trailing 2-7, they had fought back to lead 14-7 and finished strongly with two doubles and a four over the last three ends.

Kingsbridge Park lost their skip, Richard Kerswell, prior to leaving for Torquay when he unfortunately fell over in the car park and pulled out, with Ron Welham taking his place.

But the Kingsbridge four also fell early on to Tony Andrew (Stoke Fleming), who hit back from 6-0 down to win 19-17.

Tony Andrew's rink had a super win over Dave Kenward, Andy Wickham, Phil Hackett and Griff Sanders 20-15 in the second round.

They had been pegged back to 15-15 having led 14-8, but the Stoke Fleming four triumphed on the final four ends.