YMGCR BOWLS CLUB
The last round of Midweek Pennant saw the two top teams in the A1’s face each other, YMGCR versus Wangaratta played at Yarra, with YMGCR winning 10/76 to 4/66. The positions on the ladder couldn’t change, so the game was a prelude to next week’s Qualifying Final. Even though YMGCR has won both encounters this game will be tight as both teams have many top bowlers in their teams who on their day can rip the opposition apart. Stuart McNeill’s rink was dominant all day with the whole team firing and they won 29/7. The other two rinks were in the contest all day, but fell away in the last few ends, Sanders losing 23/29 and Miles losing 24/30. The final next week will be played at Benalla.
The A2’s played Benalla at home and won 10/56 to 4/54. Allan Goudge’s rink jumped out of the blocks and lead from start to finish winning 23/14, Brown’s rink lost on the last end losing 17/19 and Bob Evans rink was getting a hiding, but after a few chosen words of encouragement, the team responded to lose 16/21. Next week we play Moria at Benalla in the knockout Elimination Final.
The A3’s travelled to Benalla and won 12/78 to 2/48. Rob Hummel’s rink played excellent bowls and they won 36/16 (this score would’ve won them “RINK OF THE WEEK”, but due to the Weekend Pennant not playing, we cannot give this highly regarded prize out this week….sorry). Les Balfour ‘s rink also recorded a good win scoring 26/13 and Danny McNeill lost 16/19. The team finished a very competitive 5th on the ladder.
The B1’s played Yarrawonga at Yarra and lost 4/51 to 10/60. Mary Essex a Yarrawonga synthetic green specialist came away with a good win 18/13, (maybe in the future, when any of our teams play Yarrawonga at Yarrawonga, Mary should be the first player picked). Ross Lloyd’s rink got up in a close game winning 21/20 and YMGCR new “golden child ” Mick Vaughan LOST 12/27. Overall it was a good result on the day as many of our team had never played there before and we all know it is a very tricky surface.
Weekend Pennant had two sides playing in the finals. The A2’s played Myrtleford at Corowa Civic but alas they couldn’t get going and trailed all day to lose 57/90. Best rink was Laureen Smith’s rink who battled on all day to lose 19/20. Their best bowler was Tony Durkin who still found sandwiches in his bag from last week’s game against Yackandandah. Brown lost 16/23, Cat went down 12/20 and Rob Hummel lost 10/27. Overall it was a very good season from the A2’s, but unfortunately when we were bad we were BAD and when we were good we were unbeatable (the proof is we beat top side Corowa Civic twice and beat and drew against Wodonga). It was the first time the side had played in the finals for many a year and let’s hope it is the start of better things to come.
The other team in the finals was our A1’s who defeated Wangaratta for the first time this year to progress straight into the Grand Final in a fortnight’s time. Young James Lefevre who was down and out last week came back fighting fit and beat Wang’s top skip 22/14. The rink started slowly and then won 10 shots in a row. Then a little time later followed it with another 8 and they were never challenged again. New skip Les Spencer’s rink jumped out of the blocks to lead 8/0 after 4 ends. The game settled down until YMGCR got a 7 and that put them out to a 20/5 lead after 12 ends. With “Snodger” Lowrie playing the game of his life and well support by Mick Szabo and Kenny Widdison they had a comfortable win 24/18. It was the opposite in the “Disco” Davies rink who got off to a slow start trailing 2/10 after 6 ends, but the rink has been in that position before and know how to get back into the contest and they did it again winning the next 8 ends to lead 13/10. The game then tightened up and finished in a draw 16/16. Scott Widdison’s rink couldn’t get into the game but played it out to the very end when they won 3 out of the last 4 to go down 12/20. So now we wait to see who our Grand Final opposition will be Wangaratta or Wodonga.
Last week we had the final of the YMGCR Ladies Pairs and this year’s winners are Anne Miles and Clarie Sanders who beat last year’s winners Laureen Smuth and Rhonda Irvine.
Hot off the press Anne Miles has won the O&M Mixed Pairs Championship with Ian Brimblecombe (Wangaratta) defeating YMGCR pair of Les Spencer and Laureen Smith in a very high standard game winning 20/18.
Next Friday Social bowls will recommence so if you are looking for a game a list will be available or ring Marie Morffew 0403371757 or Vicki Withers 0429950920. Also how about we get Wednesday Social Bowls back up and going again now that Pennant has finished for a lot of us.
We heard there was an Earth Quake tremor on Saturday morning but I have got it from a reliable source that it was actually Robert “Pinkie” Lidgerwood falling out of bed…..thanks for letting us know Kerry.