What a day it turned out to be.We knew that the weather forecast wasn’t great and at least no rain did fall, but we did have the experience of playing in a strong westerly wind.
This weekend was set aside for the playing of Men’s and Women’s Balloted 2x4x2, another of the competitions that have been set aside for use in the early part of the summer season.
Players arrived so that a start could be made at 9.00am, the women on the artificial green and the men on the cotula.
It was obvious that all players were fully attired to cope with the cold strong wind.
Margaret shown preparing herself with a hot coffee before braving the conditions.
Jan and Lana, distracted by the photographer. Both shown well wrapped up for the windy day.
The draw had been made from the 12 men’s and eight women’s teams entered, three games of 12 ends were to be played, teams to win at least two, to go into post-section play tomorrow.
As an example of how games went during the day, I can give as an example how Allan and I went during our three games.
We faced Martin and Barnaby in our first game and we were doing OK until we dropped a six and then a four putting the score after 8 ends at 13 all.
By the tenth end we had come back to life and led by 7 points but then dropped another 4 and then a single, which left us tied on the last end. The extra end was played, we dropped another point and our game had been lost.
Game two saw us facing Keith and Omeka. We dropped a four on the first end and things after eight ends saw us trailing 4-15. Little chance making progress we thought!
And then things sort of changed – we got a seven on the next end and then went on to be only two behind with only one end to play. Another single on the last end saw us nearly recover but not enough and we were not able to go into tomorrow’s play. We did manage to win the third game but that was the end of our games.
The wind made it quite difficult to be consistent but it was the same for all, just another sort of challenge that bowls offers us.
Hope the weather improves for tomorrow’s play.
Qualifiers and draw for tomorrow. Play starts tomorrow at 10.am
Men. Five qualifiers
Shoota to play Martin Howse. The winner to play Keith West and at the same time as that game, Paul Gardner to play Murray Griffin. The final to follow.
Women: Three qualifiers
Margaret Griffin to play Barbara Selley, the winner to play Susan Boxall in the final.