Men’s Club Pairs kicked off today. All sorts of last minute unfortunate circumstances led to a few players away, but we did get five games going in the morning, and a few in the afternoon.
In a star studded match up, defending champions Robbie Bennett & Sid Roddick got over Ben King and Laurie Guy in a tight tussle 15-12. Match was a repeat of last year’s quarter final, and went the same way.
Match of the morning was Jeremy Kydd & Colvin Inglis vs Lou Newman & Ian McLeod. With Jeremy’s pair in control of the match, 6 ahead with 4 to play, they slipped up and couldn’t draw within cooey, dropping a 5 to let Newman’s pair right back into it. It got to the last with Jeremy’s team one ahead. Ian had two decent shots as the skips crossed. Jeremy drew pretty close to a back-jammer with his first, a bowl that looked like it could be a game winner, but not for long as Lou drove and managed to take it out clean to hold game again. Jeremy drew another good one though, close to shot. Nobody was sure which bowl held. Lou with last bowl of the match, after inspecting the head, played to sit Jeremy’s bowl out and stay for the match. A lovely bowl on the tight hand with controlled weight, which the players and crowd all thought was going to sit the opposition out for the win, but it just turned late by a fraction to tip his own bowl out and make it an unfortunate defeat. That was the story of the morning for Lou’s team, although Jeremy & Colvin were playing well, Lou had several bad results off what were decent bowls.
The team of Alf De Munnik & James Fairhall who have reached the pairs final for four years running switched around this year with James going skip. They had a good win against Bazza & Burgee, who were in it for most of the match in a game with some tight heads, but it got away from them in the end.
Gary Ruane & Calum Finlayson got up vs Bas Dynan & Alan Woods, while our Scottish import Steve Nicoll got his first Victoria championship match victory, as him & Adam Newman won by three shots vs Jayden Ravji & Gavin McFadyen.
Round 2
The day didn’t get any better for Lou & Ian, as they lost again, this time to the always consistent James & Alf.
Bazza & Burgee were behind all the way vs Adam & Steve. Kept plugging away though when some may have given up, 10 behind with 3 ends to go, then brought it back to 5 behind on last. On last end, Burgee dragged the kitty early to near the ditch, and the head started looking very sour for Adam. His first fell in ditch, his next hit a short bowl, and with his last to play was SIX DOWN!!! No surprise though that he showed his class and drew it dead with last bowl to win!
If this link works you can see Adam Newman’s match winning bowl here
An epic tussle this afternoon between Ben King & Laurie Guy vs Jayden Ravji & Gavin McFadyen. With Jayden behind the whole way, he caught up to be just one behind on last end.
On the last, Gavin drew a beauty bang on the cake. Ben with last bowl played with 2 metres of weight, dragging the kitty back, though unfortunately it ended with Jayden holding. That made it go to extra end. On extra end the wind was causing havoc on a longish end. Jayden drew shot a metre away. Ben with last bowl tried to run off Jayden but could only knock out his own second. A great win for Jayden & Gavin which keeps them alive.
Ben’s final bowl:
Summary
Looking good so far is the Alf/James combo, as well as Adam/Steve, both with two wins. Needing one win out of their last two to make post-section.
There will be no club pairs victory this season for the teams of Bazza/Burgee, Ben/Laurie, or Lou/Ian. Comment has been made that we should run a plate tournament with such top teams available!