People sometimes say to me that bowls is a “boring” game. Well it is this type of game that blows that comment out of the water!
Olveston are a bowls club with a copious number of “quality” players and any time that we play them we know that it will be a real challenge. But then as the saying goes, you have to beat the best to be the best.
I played Ted Mangan in the two wood and I have to say that the rink was challenging (which was undoubtedly a theme across all rinks). It was tracking on both hands which did not make it much fun to play and was a real shame as I had a roll up yesterday and thought the green was playing the best it has all season … but that was yesterday!!. And as Karen said to me after the game it is ultimately the same for both players/teams.
At 16 ends I was trailing 8-11 and with 5 ends left had to really concentrate; (yes I can hear you all asking why I hadn’t been concentrating before this, but you know what I mean). I then managed to pick up two 2’s, dropped a 1 and then finished with a further two 2’s to run out 16-12 and give the team a firm foundation.
As Kev would say you can win one of the singles and lose one and still go on to win overall but you can’t really expect to lose both singles and expect to win overall.
Focus then turned to Jim who was playing Rob Smith (ex Gloucestershire singles champion). Jim found rink 4 “challenging” dropping behind 6-15, but then made a great comeback to get the score to 15-15. Unfortunately for Redland Rob then scored a 1, 3 and 2 to take the point.
On the fours Roger with Jon, Mike I and Nigel never really got into it finishing 6-26. They played all 18 ends as there was a question as to whether overall shots are important. To clarify they are not. If a particular rink draws after the determined ends then that rink alone plays an extra end to determine who gets the point.
On the pairs Will and Larry I believe fell behind at the start (Calvin mislaid the card so I don’t have actual scores) and obviously I was playing. But they made a great comeback to win the point.
This meant that the whole match now rested on the triples team of Josh, Jake and Mark P. At 16 ends they were winning 13-9 and then dropped a single to lead by 13-10 going into the last end. Some good bowling by Jake and Mark meant that it was a tight head but Olveston did not have any bowls through the head which made the position difficult for Paul Bryant, skipping for Olveston. Ultimately despite his best efforts Redland held on and picked up 1 to run out 14-10 winners and clinch the overall victory.
(With reference to Josh) I must congratulate him on being the highest winning rink in the Middleton Cup game yesterday – well done Josh 👏
On to the next challenge, the Semi Final against Victory Park away – now that green will be faster than Redland! 😃