B & D Home v Long Ashton (Home) – Won 60-38 (8 Points)
The following report was written by Kevin French:
It’s a funny game, bowls!
With the top of the table team playing bottom placed, you may have hoped for a more definitive win, but nobody told the Long Ashton players that was the plan.
On what was to be RKJ’s rink with Mike, Mark Dixon (making his B & D league debut) and Calvin, Roger suffering with an injury we swapped around after the trial ends and Mike moved to skip and Roger to lead. I suppose this may have unsettled the rink a little and we went 3-17 behind, but then stopped the rot in the second half and we plugged away to end 10-20.
On Josh’s rink with Mark, Keith and Kev this seems to be building into a very capable “unit” and with the front end players all having excellent games Josh didn’t have much to do (and didn’t!), in fact there was much debate after the game as to how many shots Josh had actually given the opposition! 😉
Final score 36-7
P.S. Continuing to blaze the trail of new marking techniques Mark now has a measure positioned at each end of the rink, but still doesn’t seem to have one on him when needed!
With the shot difference on Josh’s and Mike’s rinks winning the game looked in the bag, so the question was whether we could get 8 points or might have to settle with 6?
So on Jim’s rink with Will, Trev and Andy, there seems to be a pattern developing of a slow start and then a comeback, (you can’t keep good bowlers down), going 3-8 behind, winning 8 out of the last 10 ends were level at 11 each and this is where knowing how to “close out a game” comes into play with picking up 3 singles on the last 3 ends ground out a 14-11 win.
Another win and so we roll confidently on to meet Bristol at home next week.
P.S. All the best to Josh who’s playing in the under 25’s comp at Gloucester City on Saturday and the chance to go to the National Finals at Leamington in this his last year as a under 25.