Two teams from MBBC competed at the Arawa Bowling Club’s split fours tournament on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.
The self-named “A” team of Ian Coombe, John Valentine, Barry McCrystal and John Lindsay lived up to their name this year, being runners-up in the A section of the tournament. Apart from one blip in one of the pairs’ games on qualifying day, they played very good, consistent bowls against some very strong opposition.
The other team of Tony Popplewell, Tony James, Kevin Cameron and Steve McGregor struggled in the qualifying games, with Tony J and Kevin winning both of their pairs games and Tony P and Steve only managing a draw and a loss in their pairs, and the team losing both of their fours games. As a result, they qualified for section 2 post-section play.
Kevin and Tony J continued their winning way in their pairs, Tony P and Steve played much more consistently in theirs but still lost them both. Two wins in the fours, along with the two wins in the pairs was enough for them to secure third place in the section 2 competition.
Kevin skipped the final fours game and special mention must be made of his final bowl, the last bowl of the game. Against a strong, very confident Arawa team, (who ended up coming second in the section) Kevin’s team were one down on the board and one down on the green, with only Kevin’s last bowl to play. Following Tony J’s instructions exactly, Kevin played a very difficult running, almost driving shot, to just sneak inside a few bowls about a meter out from the jack, flick the jack across closer to a Mairangi bowl, and into the ditch, with Kevin’s bowl continuing into the ditch to take the shot.
Two points to Mairangi, and the win! One very happy team and one very quiet team.
Arawa did a great job of hosting the tournament. Their greens were lovely to play on, a little “sticky” on Tuesday, especially in the morning, and very similar to our Knightsbridge on Wednesday.
Quite hot – 26/27 degrees in the afternoons, with little or no breeze on both days.
Report by Steve McGregor