Saturday 10th April saw all three pennant teams playing at home at Bowral.  Do not know how much difference playing at home made, but the results were excellent with two wins and draw.  Grade 2 had the narrowest of wins with a 1 shot margin over Wallacia.  Final score was Bowral 63 to Wallacia 62 shots.  Best Bowral side was skipper Nathan Boyers, lead Ashley Lewis, second Kevin Stafford and third Garry Brown who has  returned  to play at Bowral.  This team won 27-21.  They took a 6 shot lead before losing a 6 shot end and then trailing 9-6.  Bowral then scored 10 shots in the next 3 ends to take back the lead and go on to a 27-21 win.  Josh Woodcock with Carl Spilker, Glynn Phillips and Paul Leverett drew 20 all,  An even game with the score even at 16 shots after 16 ends.  Wallacia pulled away to a 4 shot lead but Josh and team regained those 4 shots on the last 2 ends to level the score.  Mick Spong with Gordon Lewis, Stephen Della and Mick Armstrong lost 16-21 shots.  A strong first half by Wallacia  had them 14-9 ahead at end 11 and they stayed ahead for the rest of the game.  A win to Bowral 8.5 points to Wallacia 1.5 points.  On the Grade 2 ladder Bowral on 20 points are ahead of last placed Wallacia with leaders Austral on 45.5 points ahead of Glenbrook 38 and Penrith 32.5.

Grade 6 had their second win of the pennant season with a 9-1 point win over Taralga.  Big board score was Bowral 66 shots and Taralga 56 shots.  On the grade 6 section 1 ladder Bowral is now off the bottom of the ladder on 22 point while Camden lead on 47 points from Robertson 37 and third Taralga 30.  Conditions were testing for as well as a lightning fast green there was a strong Westerly cross wind to made play difficult for Bowral as well as their opponents. Best rink saw a return to great form by David Coltman with lead Noel Fraser, Steve Day and Dennis Beatty.  They had a 10 shot win and ran up a 26-14 lead after 15 ends.  A small lapse saw Taralga score 9 shots over the next 4 ends before David won 5 shots over the last two ends for that excellent 10 shot win.  Once again Jim Neely and team of  Terry Butt, Bob Crowley and Gail Fraser had a narrow 2 shot win.  Leaders at end 11 by 13-4 they seemed to have a comfortable lead.  Taralga fought back  and by end 19 were just 2 shots behind.  As both teams scored 2 shots on the final 2 ends Bowral won by 2 shots.  Graham Hunt, Terry Norwood, Julie Hayden and Robin Staples lost by 2 shots.  Man of the match was definitely the Taralga skipper Geof Croker who with spasmodic help from his team turned the match in their favour.  Best of the Bowral team was Terry Norwood.  With another three matches at Bowral the teams hope to climb further up the ladder.  Shame that Taralga team  had to travel the hour and a half home without refreshments after the other teams scoffed the lot.

Grade 7 had their second draw of the season and like the last draw they had at home they won two rinks so achieved 5.5 points to Bundanoons 4.5. Best rink was Bob Edwards with Peter Cornwall, Richard Denman and David Noble.  They had a convincing win 30-15.  Bob lead all the way with just a small glitch in the middle when Bundanoon won 4 ends in a row  and got to within 4 shots before Bowral raced home for the win including a 7 shot end.  Must have felt good for the team as a revenge for their heavy defeat when they played at Bundanoon.  The other winners were Andy Connors, Alex Lamb, Reta South and skipper Brian Porter with a 27-22 win.  Down early to Bundanoon by 2-10 after 7 ends they scored 8 shots in the next 3 ends to level at 10 all.  Level again at 17 all on end 17 Brian and team had the better of the final few ends to win by 5 shots.  Not such a good result for Clive Neutze with Rick Reynolds, Billy Meredith and Dave Riddell who suffered a 12-32 shot loss.  Other than the first end Bundanoon were always ahead and had a comfortable win.  Bowral sits on the bottom of the ladder with 14 points while Bundanoon leads on 42.5 (the ladder may not be complete if you are checking as both grade 7 and grade 6 show Bowral as having only played 5 matches?).  Bargo are second on 37.5 points and Camden third on 34.5 points.  Next week Bowral grade 7 play Camden at Camden.  As mentioned both Grade 2 and grade 6 are at home again with grade 2 taking on second on the ladder Glenbrook and grade 6 hoping to reverse their narrow lost to Picton.

Sunday 11th April was also busy at the Bowral Bowling Club with play in the semi finals of the Club Minor Singles and first round of the Club Championship Singles.   The semi finals game one was Carl Spilker against David Noble.  In Carl’s words “I celebrated the grade 2 win a little too much the night before and slept in” so David proceeds into the final.  Game two was a high quality match with a excellent win going to Eric Willacy over a very strong opponent, Glynn Phillips.  Early lead to Gynn but Eric leveled the score on end 7 at 5 all.  At end 11 Glynn had regained the lead 9-7 before a strong run by Eric saw him win the next 7 ends and take a 18-9 lead.  A slight advantage to Glynn over the next 5 ends had the score 20-14 in Eric’s favour.  Another five straight ends to Eric placed him in a strong position at 29-14.  It took Eric a couple more ends before he sealed the victory 31-17.  The final should be next Sunday 18th May and features Eric against David Noble.

A quick resume of the first round games in the Club Championship Singles.  I have no results for the Noel Fraser versus Glynn Phillips game or the Andy Connor versus Harold Wall game.  Eric Willacy having had a nice warm up in the morning continued his super form with a 31-5 win over Alex Lamb.  David Coltman had a 31-22 win over Terry Norwood.  Terry started off well taking an 8 shot lead .  However losing 2 ends by 4 shots and 2 ends by 3 shots made a win difficult to achieve.  To his credit he fought back in the middle of the game to trail by only one shot 20-21 before David had the better of the last part of the match.  Dugald Braithwaite defeated Gordon Lewis 31-15.  Peter Morales rapidly overcame Dave Riddell winning 31-10 in 21 ends.  Game of the afternoon was Jim Neely and Dennis Beatty with a score Jim’s way 31-30.  In Gordon Lewis’s words, “highlight Dennis Beatty come from behind to nearly snatch victory going down on the last end by one shot”.  Terry Butt playing his first championship had confidence boosting win over Perter Cornwall by a close 31-27  shots.  Ashley Lewis had a win over Brian Porter by 31-22 but the score would indicate Brain put up a good fight.  Similar score in the next game with Clive Neutze 31 shots beating Tony Oakes 21 shots.   Josh Woodcock had a tussle against fellow grade 2 skipper Nathan Boyers and scraped home by 4 shots 31-27.   In the match between Kevin Stafford and last years finalist Bob Crowley scores were level at 14 all on end 21 before Kevin took control and eased away to a 31-20 win.  Round 2 is scheduled for Sunday April 18th 2021.