Senior men surge to top of leaderboard
A report for The Mercury by Peter Kirby
Bowls South’s Senior (Over 60’s) Men’s and Women’s sides participated in Rounds 3 and 4 of Bowls Tasmania’s Senior Statewide Challenge at the North Launceston Bowls Club on Tuesday. The Men’s side, with 7 of the 12 players new to the competition this season, is having an excellent series, and is currently best performed of the three regions, leading on 26 points from the North (16) and North-West (14).
Bowls South is in the box seat to win the Senior Men’s division of Statewide Challenge, having played its two games against the Tasmanian side, while both the North and North-West meet the State side a second time over the final two rounds of the competition.
Playing Bowls North-West in the morning round, South’s Senior Men closed out a nail-biting all-rinks victory by a slim 3 shots, 49-46. The difference would have been greater except for the tenacious efforts of several North-West skips.
South’s Brad Knight had a good 8 shot lead with several ends to play against the North West’s Anthony Armstrong but conceded 7 shots to Armstrong to hang on by a single shot, 20-19.
Souths’ Peter Marshall and Chris Martyn finished 1 up on their North-West rivals, also, Marshall beating Grant Youd, 14-13, and Martyn winning, 15-14, against Greg Douce.
In the afternoon round South’s Men put in a superb performance against the Tasmanian side, winning on two of the three rinks, but lost the match overall by 5 shots, 46-51, the brilliance of State skip, Tony Vince, the difference between the 2 sides, defeating Martyn by 14 shots, 26-12.
Vince built up a big early lead, but Martyn’s rink played strongly late in the game, picking up 7 shots to end with a credible score. Knight outplayed David Minns over the final ends to win by 5 shots, 18-13, and Marshall had a good 4 shot win over Ricky Richardson, 16-12.
In other Senior Men’s matches, the Tasmanian side defeated the North, 55-32, in the morning round, winning on 2 rinks and drawing the third, and the North-West defeated the North on 2 rinks in the afternoon, 46-40.
Unfortunately, South’s Senior Women did not fare so well, losing to the North-West in the morning, 44-56, with Cheryl Ann Nielsenbeck picking up a rink win for the South, defeating Jill Silvey, 17-16.
The Tasmanian Senior Women’s side, containing 5 players from the South, had an all-rinks win over the Southern Women in the afternoon, 54-36, the South’s Noelene Fehlberg and Cheryl Ann Nielsenbeck unlucky 3 shot losers, Fehlberg losing to Kim Saunders, 14-17, and Nielsenbeck, 13-16, to Lyn Triffitt.
In other women’s matches on Tuesday, the Tasmanian Senior Women’s side defeated on all rinks in the morning round, 62-19, and North-West defeated the North in the afternoon, 55-53, with both sides winning a rink and drawing the third, Rae Simpson’s 24-12 defeat of Barbara Smith just a little better for the North-West than North’s Margaret Campbell’s 22-12 win against Helen Sturzaker.
The North leads the Senior Women’s competition on 25 points, from the North-West on 19 points, and the South on 4 points.
The final two rounds of Seniors Statewide Challenge will be played in Launceston on Tuesday 27 February when the South will play the North and North-West.