WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 16th
To begin with, a couple of reminders for members:
- The next meeting of the Mens Bowls Committee will be held at the Club on this coming Saturday 19th. The current members of the committee are President Bob Crowley, Ted McPhee, Chris Forrester, Terry Norwood, Mick Flynn and Graham Hunt. The minutes of the meeting should be available shortly thereafter.
- The next competition will be the Mens Major Pairs Championship to begin on Saturday December 3rd. The entry sheet is on the notice board at the Club, so members are encouraged to sort out playing partners and get yourselves listed. Hopefully we’ll have a strong field to fight out this important competition.
SOCIAL BOWLS
A good sized field of bowlers listed their names for social bowls on Wednesday 16th. Thirty-one in fact, which would have been quite a few higher but for the threatening weather. Around 1pm the weather was quite a worry with a very cold wind gusting and a heavy sky looking quite ominous. The rain (or sleet or hail or whatever the clouds held) didn’t arrive, although the wind was unrelenting all afternoon and swung between south-west and north-west giving bowlers a fairly torrid time.
On rink 7 of the Waratah Green, the usual eighteen-ender saw a change of bowlers with John Cummins and Bill Pope unavailable. Bill Meredith was skipper to Graham Denman and John Fleming, while Kel Limbrick and Lawrence Vipond teamed with Paul Rubie. Team Rubie got off to a flying start to lead 14 – 1 after five ends, only for Bill and his men to win the next three ends and get to within five on the scorecard. However, Paul’s team dominated most of the remainder of the game to run out impressive winners 29 – 16.
Winning skipper Paul Rubie! Lawrence Vipond on the mat!
On the adjacent rink, Ted McPhee, Chris Forrester and Bob Edwards went head to head with Noel Fraser, Graham Hartnup and skipper Joe O’Donnell. Although Joe’s team won the first four ends, the scores were equal after six ends, and still the same at 8 – 8 at the halfway point of the match. It was then that Team Edwards won the next four ends and looked to be in control at 14 – 8. Joe’s team staged a comeback to get within two shots before team Edwards had a couple of three shot wins and went on to victory by 21 – 14.
Chris puts one down! Joe O’Donnell on the mat!
On rink 9, Joel Hunt was the swing bowler to both Mike Hook and skipper Steve Goddard and the Terry Norwood / Don Chapman combination. Once the bowlers had come to grips with the strong wind, this game settled down to close, hard fought ends. The score was 5 – 5 after nine ends with both skips having a grand old tussle. At that point, with Joel leading well for both teams, Don and Terry edged in front to lead 11 – 6 and still led by five shots with two ends remaining. Far from done, and with Joel still leading very well, Steve and Mike won the last two ends but fell one short of team Chapman. The final score was 14 – 13.
In a triples game, newcomer Robert Dean led for Brian Bailey and skipper Neville Tanner against Keith Edwards, Col Stone and skipper Arnold Lenczuk. The opening ends were close in this match, and both teams had edged their way to four shots after seven ends. It was then the the experience and skill of the wily old fox Keith Edwards came to the fore as he provided the foundation for Team Lenczuk to grind out a lead. They had pushed out to a lead of 14 – 8 by the sixteenth end and a crippling five to them on the next end meant that Neville and his men were really up against the odds. The final score in favour of Arnold and his team was 20 – 10.
The wily fox Keith Edwards! Skipper Arnold Lenczuk!
The game on rink 11 was a pairs match which featured Wal Markow and skipper Graham Hunt up against Garry Mitchell and Don Coleman. Wal and Graham jumped out of the blocks smartly and quickly ran up a lead of 10 – 1. And this margin on the scorecard remained fairly constant for the rest of the match! Down 14 – 4 after nine ends, Garry and Don won five ends against four to their opponents but were unable to close the gap. The final score was 20 – 9 in favour of Wal and Graham.
The final game was another pairs match, this one between Denis Lees and skipper Clive Neutze against Barry Werfel and Paul McInerney. This was expected to be a close encounter but it didn’t turn out that way! Barry and Paul won the first six ends and had pushed on to lead 13 – 2 after ten ends. Things didn’t change much in the second half of the game as Barry and Paul won most of the ends and finished with a massive five shot haul on the twenty-first end. The final score was 30 – 9.
Barry Werfel had a big day!