BBC BROADCAST SATURDAY AUGUST 24th (Terry Norwood at the desk)
A few points of information to start with:
- As previously indicated, bowls on Wednesday September will see a mixed triples event to celebrate inauguration day. Bowls began in Bowral 110 years ago and women’s bowls started 85 years ago. The event on the 4th will celebrate these two inaugurations. Cost will be $20 which will include green fees, food and prizes. The Club has kindly offered to provide the new Trophy, the name for which we are currently working on! Men bowlers, please note there will be no other organised bowls on that day.
- The next meeting of the Board of the Club Ltd will be held on Tuesday August 26th. Hopefully, some decisive information on greenkeeping will come from this meeting.
- The draft minutes of the AGM of the Men’s Bowling Committee are now posted on the notice board. The new executive comprises Terry Norwood President, Peter Flight Vice- President, and Match Committee Members Graham Hunt, Ted McPhee, Chris Forrester, Robin Staples, Ian Duncan and Richard Denman. The positions of Bowls Secretary and another Vice-President remain vacant and their duties will be taken up by the other members of the Executive.
- Currently, we have 81 signed-up Men members on the books with another two who will probably re-sign when they have medical issues sorted. In addition, we have been approached by two more newcomers to the Highlands who are eager to have some lessons on bowls, so membership is not looking too bad at present, although we would very much like to see some younger men turn to bowls.
RSL Shield Saturday August 24th
The second round of the RSL Shield Competition was staged on Saturday with the playing of the Singles and Triples matches. The singles players were the members of each team who were lead for the Fours events in Round 1, with the remaining members of the teams making up the Triples. The Singles matches had to be played over 31 ends while the Triples would have 21 ends.
At the start of the day, the side led by Ash Lewis held a substantial lead on 35 points ahead of the other three teams clustered between 16 – 19. So, what were the results from Saturday’s encounters on a breezy afternoon on a slick Waratah Green?!
The Singles game on rink 8 between Arnie ‘Rosie’ Lenczuk (for team Crowley) and Mick ‘potters’ Flynn (for team Lewis) saw Mick blast from the blocks to grab six shots on the first three ends and have ‘Rosie’ floundering. Mick continued on his way securing shots on four of the next six ends, and although the yields were singles and doubles, he was giving his ‘top of the table’ team just what they were looking for. Arnie was struggling in the wind, so Mick, playing his own game, racked up some very handy scores. He was plus 7 after fourteen ends, plus 12 after twenty, and, much to his delight and the great pleasure of his Lewis team mates, was plus 20 after the thirty-first end. A great day on the green for Mick and for team Lewis. 34 points to Mick and team Lewis, and 14 to Arnie and team Crowley.
Mick amassed a huge bag of shots in a great display of draw bowling!
The Triples game between team Crowley and team Lewis saw Ted ‘Mr Ed’ McPhee, the venerable Gordon Lewis and Bob ‘ebullience’ Crowley tussle against Peter ‘ambi’ Flight, Stephen ‘doc’ Della and the amiable Ash Lewis. And what a tight affair this turned out to be! The call seemed to be, ‘if we can’t score then restrict the opposition to as few shots as possible’! In all the twenty-one ends only one ended with a score of more than two shots, and that was a four shotter to Bob’s team on the twelfth end. As the breeze switched back and forth from north-west to south-west taunting the bowlers, shots were very hard to come by. However, it was team Crowley that did the better, took the honours on twelve ends to nine and finished plus 6 with 17 shots to 11. This was a brilliant achievement by Bob’s trio against the more highly ranked opposition.
Ted, Gordon and Bob had a blinder against the highly ranked Lewis Trio!
So the overall battle between these two sides saw team Lewis nett 45 shots and team Crowley nett 31 shots to add to their totals from round 1.
Now, the Singles game between the other two teams saw Graham ‘jockey’ Hunt (for team McGhee) battle against Bob ‘wily’ Edwards (for team Goddard). In another red hot start, Bob had accumulated 5 shots by three ends and 9 after seven ends to the measly 2 shots by Graham! The wind was really interfering badly at this point and Graham was wondering whether some of his bowls were going to run with or against the bias! Despite the elements, both bowlers stuck to the task and kept trying to rack up points. With Graham starting to find some better touch and riding his bowls home, he began to outpoint Bob on more ends than not so that by the twenty-seventh end, he had amassed 25 shots to Bob’s 20. Far from done, Bob then grabbed a couple of three shotters so that at the thirty-first he had 26 shots to Graham’s 27. Both had worked extremely hard and netted great totals for their respective teams.
Graham ‘jockey’ had to ‘ride’ many bowls in the wind!
And so to the Triples between Team McGhee of Terry ‘Preston’ Norwood, Dave Coltman and Al McGhee and team Goddard of Dave Charlesworth, Stephen ‘makeover’ Day and Steven ‘suave’ Goddard; this was another fairly tight affair. Al’s team scored three doubles in the first four ends to one by their opponents and so felt quite happy about proceedings. However, when Steven’s team notched up two triples and a four shotter at the end of the first half of the match, they had a very useful 15 shots in the bag. It was then that team McGhee took over the scoring, winning eight of the last ten ends. However, apart from one three shotter they could score only singles and were frustrated in their attempt to amass points. Team McGhee finished the twenty-one ender with 19 shots to the 20 for team Goddard. Given the conditions, there were some very good ends of bowls played in this match, but the competition is about scoring many shots, and both teams felt they needed more than they bagged!
Dave Coltman had some great ends as did his opposite Steve Day!
Thus, the tussle between these two teams saw team McGhee accumulate 46 points and team Goddard the same number of 46!
The table, then, at the conclusion of Round 2 of the RSL Shield has team Lewis leading on 80 points, from team McGhee on 65, team Goddard on 63 and team Crowley on 50! So, team Lewis is in a very strong position going into the final round on Saturday August 31st, but be assured than none of the other teams is about to roll over and let them coast home! Stay tuned!