You can’t win them all and sometimes when you lose all you can do is shake the opponents hand, say “Well played” and move on.
Going to Olveston means playing a talented opposition and in the two rink essentially playing two Middleton Cup (Gloucestershire) rinks, so running them close we should be very proud of ourselves 👏
At 10 ends we were ahead by 1 overall and at 15 ends the overall score was 26-28 with everything to play for.
Unfortunately however Jim, with his usual crew of Andy, Nigel and Will ran out 15-16 while Josh with Larry, Mike I and Calvin ran out 15-20.
For me the turning point of the match was end 17 on Jim’s rink. With Nigel joining this crew this season (if you are reading this Trevor we send you our very best wishes) I have, as I usually do with newer bowlers, been giving Nigel the benefit of my years of experience (poor Nigel I hear you all cry!). Part of this “education” has been the saying “What are holes made for – Bowls!”. Which means that when building a head it is sometimes better to have bowls a little apart so that if the opposition try to play into the head they may sail through. Unfortunately on the 17th end this worked against us and although Jim played two great bowls to try and reduce the count down each time he found a hole in the head and we dropped a four which took the wind out of our sails. 😔
I didn’t really see much of the game on the other rink but Larry was leading and from what I saw he had a very good game – much better than me on the night, well done Larry 👏
I would like to thank Olveston for their hospitality and sportsmanship and wish them good luck in the next round of this completion. 🏆
I have finally to highlight an interesting event on the 18th end of our game when Chris Blake (leading) drew his first bowl jack high but a couple of feet from the jack – the crowd went wild, jumping out of their seats and cheering!!. A bit over the top I thought for that particular bowl? It turned out that the spectators had been following the Gloucestershire Triples semi finals on social media and an Olveston team, skipped by Alan Lambourne, had qualified for Leamington on their last end 😃 👍
On to the next game on Sunday against Dursley at home 🤞