Aero bowls were used by three out of four finalists in the Women’s and Men’s Junior Singles.
Hot favourite for the Women’s Junior Singles was Julie Stichbury the only player not using Aero bowls. Earlier in the season Julie had won the Women’s Handicap Singles, Open Singles and Pairs. Her opposition in the final Jan Dawson has made great strides this season with her new Aero bowls, drawing really well in the semi final, ousting Jenny Watt 21-18. Jan continued the awesome draw bowling in the final beating the fancied Julie 21-16.
The men’s quarter final saw the very interesting match up of first year bowls Arnie Taiaroa and Pat Albert. In their two previous encounters the honours had been shared. The first half of the games was very close until Arnie lost concentration and Pat starting scoring at will. Arnie managed to sort himself out but the game was lost, going down 21-15. Pat played the much more experienced Grahame Law in the semi final and although he played well and was in the game for the first part, Grahame pulled away and won easily 21-11. The other semi final was expected to be much closer however Peter Brown struggled against the in form Bill Clelland who is another that has improved since getting his new Aero bowls. Bill played consistently well ending up to strong, winning 21-9. The favourite for the final should have been Grahame Law, he had previously won the Handicap Singles with only a 6 point handicap and was runner up last year in this event. However Bill’s form continued into the final, again played very consistent draw bowls and although Grahame would catch up and the scores were equal three times during the match, Bill would always pull away again, eventually winning 21-14
The club congratulates all qualifiers and especially the winners. We wish Jan and Bill well for the Champion of Champions on Sunday 15th March.
Bill Clelland in the pink.