Saturday 8th May 2021 was the tenth and  final round of the pennant season.  All in all a pretty average season for the Bowral Bowling Club with two teams finishing in the middle of the pack and one team finishing last.  Grade 2 were home to Penrith, one of the stronger teams in the competition.  Heavy rain over Wednesday and Thursday left the grass too wet to play so the grade 2 were forced to play on the synthetic green.  Penrith were easy winners, winning all three rinks for a 10-0 points score and a big board win of 61 to Bowral 34.  Skipper Mick Spong was the best of the Bowral teams only losing by one shot.  Micks team was led by Stephen Della then Kevin Stafford and Mick Armstrong.  A tight game all the way with Bowral being down 11-15 after 10 ends.  They then had slightly the better of the second half of the game but fell short 19-20.  M Anderson with Ashley Lewis, Nathan Boyers and Garry Brown lost 9-21.  The team held an early lead but Penrith leveled the score on end 9  and then pulled away to a comfortable win.  Carl Spilker, Glynn Phillips, Paul leverett and Josh Woodcock never lead in their game being 1-13 down after 10 ends and just a late surge bringing the score back to a more respectable  8-20 shot loss.  So no relegation worries for the grade with a 4th place finish behind winners Austral (83.5), Penrith (62.5) and Glenbrook (57) and Bowral (37.5).  Playing the first five games away from home due to no Bowral green being available certainly did nothing to improve the results.  Also players being unavailable for various reasons in the middle of the season did not help though two top level players joining the Club for the last few games helped the teams at the back end of the competition.  Zone 5 website tables a Player/Skip Ladder for information.  On this ladder Paul Leverett (skipped for Josh Woodcock for one game when Josh was injured) played 10, won 4, drew 1 and lost 5.  Ashley Lewis (who played most often in what was eventually the Anderson team) played 9, won 4 and lost 5.  Mick Armstrong from the third team played 10, lost 9 and won 1.

Grade 6 section 1 had a not dissimilar result.  Their last match was away to Campbelltown and the point score down the bottom end of the ladder was very tight with Bowral, Campbelltown or Taralga  all possible candidates for the last spot and relegation.  With Campbelltown greens playable, though very slow after the rain, the final match of the season could go ahead. While I do not have the individual game scores best Bowral rink was skippered by Jim Neely with Ted McPhee, Bob Crowley and Gail Fraser. Their result was around 22-8 and a very good win.  David Coltman also led his team to a win though with a little less margin.  Noel Fraser was lead with Keith Edwards filling the role of second with some accurate bowling and the ever reliable Dennis Beatty as third.  A bit of a thrashing for the third team of Robin Staples, Graham Hunt, Terry Norwood and Julie Hayden.  They lost heavily by 22-10 with the only redeeming feature a late rally, mostly due to  the effective bowling of Julie, to score a few shots to help the master board.  The big board result?  A win for Bowral by 58-50 and 9 points to 1 point.  Enough to lift the side up to fourth place and clear of relegation.  The ladder had Camden (69) followed by Robertson (63.5) then Picton (55.5) and Bowral (42.5).  Taralga after early front running were bottom of the table on 33 points.  Like grade 2 this grade played most of the early games away from home, not a desirable situation.  The Zone 5 website  Player/Skip Ladder ( with some doubt about the accuracy of the information) had Staples team played 10, won 5, drawn 1 and lost 4.  Coltman team played 10, won 5 and lost 5.  Gail Fraser (who skipped when Jim Neely was elevated to the grade 2 for a match) played 10, won 4 and lost 6.

Grade 7 Section 3 Bowral team had a season to forget.   The final match for this side was home to Picton and played as usual on the synthetic green. Once again do not have a copy of the cards but do have the game scores.  Just the one win and that was to the Bob Edwards who had a very good win by 27-11.  Brian Porter and team came close with a 3 shot loss going down 16-13 in a low scoring game.  David Noble team (David taking the place of injured Clive Neutze) lost 7-26.  Big board score in favour of Picton by only 6 shots at Picton 54 Bowral 48 shots and Picton 9 points and Bowral just the one point.  Ladder wise congratulations to local side Bundanoon who won and will rise to grade 6 next year.  In second place was Bargo and third Campbelltown while Bowral will have another chance in grade 7 next year.  Just a quick extract from Zone Player/Skip ladder but by names rather than teams as the teams changed quite often in this grade.  Richard Denman played 8, won 4 and lost 4.  Tony Oakes played 9, won 3 and lost 6.  Brian Porter played 9 won 2 and lost 7.  Rita South played 10, won 2 and lost 8 and Billy Meredith played all 10 and won 2 and lost 8.  Thanks to all the lady member of Bowral who joined the ranks this year.  Even if the results are not all that was hoped for we always seemed to have sufficient reserves and the addition of the extra ladies certainly helped in this regard not to mention their excellent contribution to the various teams.

While Mothers Day precluded any play on Sunday 9th May next weekend will be busy.  Sunday 16th the semi finals of the Club Championship Singles is scheduled to start at 9 am with the final taking place in the afternoon.  Saturday sees round one (just one match) of the Club Minor Pairs and at 10 am on Sunday round two with commence.  Best of luck to all those taking part.  Below are photos of the four losers from the Club Singles quarter finals last week.