MAJOR COMPETITIONS It's great to see the Major Singles continuing this week. Due to Pennants commitments on the weekend Jeff Nicholson and Clint Hurford played their match during the week and what a match it was. The scores were level at 3-all on the fourth but it was only early, and it was anyone's game on the 10th with Hurford ahead by one 7-8. The two battled it out with scores 13-all on 15, 18-all on 20, 22-all on 25. Nicho picked up a 2 on the 26th to gain a 24-22 lead. With Clint chasing 3 and Nicho chasing 1 for the win, the pressure was on. Nicho was the lucky one to get the point he needed to take the win 25-22. Round 3 of the Major Pairs were played on Saturday. The result of these two games determines who will be our finalists. Ian Hodges and Bert Bayley played Pat O’Neil and Mick Merritt: with scores locked at 6-all on 7 this was shaping up to be a great battle. Ian and Bert picked up a 6 on the 11th to give them a four shot lead on the board 13-9. Closing the gap, Pat and Mick won the next two ends and were only two points difference. Picking up multiples again Ian and Bert took out the game 20-15. Greg Gunn and Geoff Williams took on Alf Davies and Christian West. Alf and Christian stamped their position early to have a 9-4 lead on 8. Greg and Geoff fought back hard and were only 10-12 down on 14. Whilst Greg and Geoff were able to pick up a 3 and a 4 Alf and Christian put the pedal to the metal to the finish line and won the game 25-17. PENNANTS This weekend Pennants played on our home ground the first of three weeks in a row. Unfortunately the home ground advantage did not help our teams against a very strong Manildra team. Ian Hodges, Glen Kearney, Bert Bayley and Christan West tried everything they could but couldn’t get over the line with Manildra winning 37-21. Clint Hurford, Jeff Nicholson, Shane Bolam and Mitchel Andrews made Manildra work extremely hard for their points, but Manildra were able to score the valuable last point to win 23-22. Bruce Williams led for Geoff Williams, Brian Asimus and Greg Gunn. Luck was not on the guys' side on Sunday unfortunately going down to Manildra 25-15. SOCIAL BOWLS Winners last Wednesday morning with a creditable 25-8 win in 18 ends were Pat O’Neill and John Gorton over Bill Scott and Lyall Strudwick. Pat and John must have been wondering ‘what’ as it was 10-0 after 5 then keeping Bill and Lyall to only five appearances on the card. Out of the five games of pairs Tim Everest and Laurie Crouch were also smiling after accounting for Peter Hocking and Kerry Dunstan 26-8 in 20. A bright start 6-0 after three then 20–5 at the end of 13 told the one-way story. Only slightly closer, also in 20 ends, had Jeff Nicholson and Geoff Williams winning 21-9 over Eddie Gould and John Kennedy. 10-3 at half time and it didn’t get any better, 19-8 after 17. Bob Grant led for Ross Williams and started with a resting toucher to keep this up all game leading the way in a 16-13 win over 20 downing Noel Jolliffe and Barry Shine who did show some ‘Dragon’ fight behind 15-8 at one stage. In the last, Sue Smith led for Dale Scott winning 18-17 also in 20 over John Baass and Paul Doust. They just held on leading 10-1 after seven before 10-all at the end of 11 then having to win the last with a single for victory. In-club winners Barry Shine and Jeff Nicholson. Due to the extreme heat there were no social bowls on Thursday afternoon. There were no results for Sunday bowls at time of preparing for print.
