John McGuinness admitted the England’s triples bowls team had nearly pulled off a mugging of the the auld enemy at Kelvingrove today.

McGuinness, who is U18 assistant manager at North Greenford United, and team-mates Stuart Airey and Jamie Chestney looked to have rescued an impossible situation when they fought back from 8-0 and 13-5 in arrears to lead 15-13 against Australia with two ends left.

That was as good as it got for England in the top of the table clash as the Australians sealed a 17-15 victory in a game that went down to the final bowl of the match.

While the game was close, the Londonderry-born 47-year-old was honest enough to admit England had not deserved the win.

Bowled over: The Kelvingrove centre

However, he found reasons to be cheerful in defeat.

He said “We nearly stole it to be honest, but I don’t think we played as well as we can play. We got off to a bad start, then got back into it with a big five count and then failed at the end.

“We are disappointed with how we played. I think if we had put them under a little bit more pressure at times we would maybe have tested them a little bit more.

“We are not out of the competition. If we win tomorrow we are in the quarter-finals, so whilst we are disappointed at losing the match we know we have just been beaten and played poorly.

“So if we go up to the level we can play we will still take some beating.”

Lead McGuiness also took responsibility for losing the jack twice during the tense closing ends, once by bowling the ball into the ditch before over-correcting and delivery short of the minimum length.

“The one I bowled into the ditch I can’t believe it ran on as long as it did,” he added.

 “It just kept going and going and at the end the green just slopes away a bit.

Silver lining last time: Rajiv Ouseph (L) from Hounslow made a good start in the team event

“The other one we wanted to make it a minimum jack because we were winning ends at that length. So that is my fault and I’ll take full responsibility for that one.”

McGuinness and co must now beat Papua New Guinea in tomorrow’s final group game to be sure to progress.

There was better news for Hounslow’s Rajiv Ouseph in the Badminton as he beat Jersey’s beat Alexander Hutchings 21-8, 21-8 as part of a 5-0 whitewash of the Channel Islanders in the mixed team event.

Elsewhere, on a quiet day for west London competitors, Bayswater teenager Tin-Tin Ho sat out the England Women’s table tennis team’s final victory of the group phase over Tanzania. Their third successive 3-0 win earned them a quarter-final with Malaysia tomorrow.

Down and out: Patrick Dawson of Scotland (L) throws Hounslow-born Jan Gosiewski

However, there will be no medal for Jan Gosiewski in the men’s U73kg Judo.

His challenge began well when he threw Northern Ireland’s Caoimhin Thompson for Ippon, but he  was then beaten in a close fight with Scotland’s Patrick Dawson after picking up three penalties to the host-nation man’s two.

Keep up to date with all the latest action involving our competitors with regular updates on GetWestLondon.