Top teams tumble in Round 16 upsets
A report for The Mercury by Peter Kirby
Both of the top two sides suffered embarrassing losses in the weekend’s round of Bowls South’s Divergence Built Premier Division, although top side, Kingborough, was able to improve its lead over Glenorchy Rodman in second.
Howrah and Kingborough played their match in Howrah’s Indoor Bowls Centre on Friday night, with the hosts claiming boasting rights after recording a memorable 4-shot victory over the ladder leaders, 80-76.
Although Kingborough won on 3 rinks, it was the sustained brilliant play of Howrah’s winning rink that secured the victory. Peter “Judge” Jenkins and his team of Tony Wileman, Peter Barnett, and Steven Hyland had control of their match with Ryan Guy-Rees from the outset.
A 6 on the 6th end, backed up by a 7 on the 13th were strong indicators of the dominance of the Howrah rink over their Kingborough opponents. Jenkins topped off his commanding performance by winning each of the last 5 ends, adding 10 shots to his score to finish 24 shots up, 31-9.
The Division’s leading skip, Nic Courto, did his best for the visitors, defeating Howrah’s Glenn Frame by 18 shots, 28-10, but it was the effort of Howrah’s other skips, Bill Butler, down by 1 against Jason Fowler, 21-22, and John Sutcliffe, losing to Will Coad by the same margin, 16-17, that sealed the win for the home side.
Glenorchy Rodman’s recent poor form continued at home against a Claremont side that recovered from being 38 shots down after 56 ends to run down a disappointing Rodman, sharing the rink wins but finishing 5 shots up on their hosts, 85-80.
Chris Chalker was in good form all day against Grant Allford, keeping the visitors within reach, and the Mont’s fighting spirit finally clicked in to slowly peg back Rodman’s big lead. With Nick Evans giving his opposition lead a bath, Chalker went on to win his match with Allford by 15 shots, 27-12.
Paul Hart’s big bowl on the last end gave his rink a 1 shot win over Anthony Clifford, 22-21, for Claremont’s second rink win.
Leading 19-2, Jack Ellis’ rink looked like they were having a day out, but the Mont’s Nick Chilcott played some great bowls late to inspire his rink to lift to go down by 1 shot, 20-21.
With an even bigger lead, Cam Tegg’s rink played awesome bowls in the breezy conditions to lead Michael Taylor’s rink by a massive 21-1, but Taylor fought it out in true Claremont style. With 4 ends to go, Taylor and Tegg were left to fight out the overall result.
With Claremont being 1 behind on the overall scoreboard, Taylor’s rink found something to hold shots and secure a very exciting and rowdy finish to the game. Bowls was the winner, but Glenorchy Rodman has a hard run to the finals and will need to work a lot harder to advance beyond the Qualifying Semi-Final.
In the clash between the third and fourth placed sides at Sandy Bay, with only percentage separating the home side (third) and Brighton (fourth) before the start, it was the home side that emerged victorious, consolidating their ladder position, moving 8 points clear of Brighton, winning by 9 shots, 89-80.
Sandy Bay took the points on 2 of the rinks, Andrew Norris defeating Grant Wakefield by 1 shot, 19-18, and Lochie Sims in good form against Riley Davey, winning by 13 shots, 31-18.
Matt Breward finished 5 shots up on Josh Lording, 22-17, to record a rink win for the visitors, and the final match, between Sandy Bay’s Josh Mabb and Mick Daniels, ended in a 22-all draw.
In a split rinks result, Cremorne came from behind in a close encounter at Buckingham to defeat the home side by 2 shots, 80-78. With the scores tied at 78 apiece and all other rinks completed, Cremorne’s Peter Marshall picked up 2 shots on the final end against Todd Oakley to secure victory for the visitors, but Oakley claimed the rink win for his side, 19-13.
Bradley Knight, 25-19 over Stuey Rees, and Ashley Banks, 22-19 against Grant Chamberlain, were the victorious skips for Cremorne, and Andrew Chamberlain was Buckingham’s other winning skip, holding on for a 1 shot win over Leigh Munnings, 21-20.
All hope that New Norfolk had of surviving in Premier Division, just 9 points behind 9th placed Howrah before the start of the round, evaporated at Dover on Saturday, suffering an all-rinks loss by a 38-shot margin, 38-97.
Dover’s win was set up by Roger Dale’s rink, defeating Greg Banks by 22 shots, 31-9. The matches on the other 3 rinks were much closer, Chris Norris 8 shots ahead of Barry Bone, 22-14, and Shane Garth beating Samual Winter by 7, 23-16.
Kerry Hill, returning to skip for the first time since Round 10, all but stole a rink win for New Norfolk, finally conceding to Brad Carver by a single shot, 21-20, gifting Dover a fourth rink victory for the day.