After months in hibernation, the coveted Manning Jack Attack is back to end 2020, and if you don’t remember or don’t care, the summer Jack Attack tournament fortuitously ended days before the COVID lockdowns began and everything shut down, which meant Richard ‘Half’ Price’s 3-week tournament couldn’t go ahead.

Under the circumstances, it was a very good effort from all involved to get 20 teams together, only slightly down on the 22 from earlier in the year, and understandably some teams (Including the summer champion Bowling Stones) haven’t been able to come back, while other teams have undergone some ‘re-branding’:

Barking Owls (Sister team to Hooting Dogs) are now S.cool Dads.

Irritable Bowls Syndrome are now The Bowlshoviks, and if you ask me, that is a cracking historical name change.

And, yours truly decided to change the name of Team No Hope to the Trevor Chappells…. obviously because we’re bowling underarm.

That makes us one of thousands of lawn bowls teams joking about the Underarm delivery.

As for the new teams, we have the Hyperbowles, the hyperbolic bowls team, the Smith Family, who could very well be compromised of the Smith family, and the Hansen Crew, who for some reason weren’t able to turn up on Wednesday… I think they were off recording a follow-up to MMMbop.

The Overall Night

In a change from Minister Half Price, The biggest victors on the night now get $30, and 2nd place earns $20, and to start the new season, it was bowls regulars Missing Moo’s who spun the CDs to the tune of 27-5 (+22) for an easy overall win – Apparently there’s been an issue with shrinking uniforms in the wash for the CDs camp – while it was much closer for 2nd, but on +15….

It was goodness gracious, Great Bowls Of Fire!

In cool conditions with a steady Southeasterly breeze that loved picking up at random, half the games on the night went to tiebreaks, and I should highlight the outstanding debut for the Hyperbowles, who defeated last season’s runners-up Lawn Clippings in one of those tiebreaks, and I imagine the Clippings are going to be straight on the landline to former skipper Jack Garbin asking him to pop up from Merredin on Wednesdays.

As previously mentioned, the Hansen Crew were MIA against Bowled & The Beautiful, so Christine and the B&B decided to have a few of their own players substitute as the Hansens, in something resembling the classic Australia vs Australia A matches.

In a showdown that dragged out longer than the plot of a daytime soap, Christine’s daughter Lauren, coming in from behind the bar, almost dragged Hansen over the line in a Player of the Match display, but the Bowled & The Beautiful pulled out the victory in a tiebreaker.

And, in one of the stranger incidents we’ve seen & heard about in Jack Attack, apparently nobody realised the Crawshaw residents had (allegedly) used 4 bowlers and bowled 8 shots on the opening end of their match against the S.cool Dads.

If it actually did happen, it seems those extra shots did bugger all, because the Dads held 3 on that end and won the set 8-1, although CCC would win in a tiebreak.

Results

Scoring – 2 points for a set win, 1 point for a tied set, 1 for a tiebreak win, tiebreaks aren’t counted in score differential

Grass 1: Missing Moo’s (4 pts +22) defeated CD’s

Grass 2: T-Birds (3 pts -2) defeated the Habibs (2 pts +2) – 1-0 in a tiebreak

Grass 3: Great Bowls Of Fire (4 pts +15) defeated Babes with Balls

Grass 4: Hyperbowles (3 pts +3) defeated Lawn Clippings – 1-0 in a tiebreak

Synthetic 2: Bowled & The Beautiful (3 pts -5) defeated Hansen Crew* (2pts +5) – 2-0 in a tiebreak

Synthetic 3: Trevor Chappells (4 pts +14) defeated Marg’s V11

Synthetic 4: Crawshaw Crisis Committee (3 pts, -1) defeated S.Cool Dads (2 pts +1) – 2-0 in a tiebreak

Synthetic 5: Ten Pin (4 pts +12) defeated Shiny Shiny Bowls

Synthetic 6: The Bowlshoviks (3 pts +7) defeated Team 180 (2 pts, -7) – 3-0 in a tiebreak

Synthetic 7: Young Guns (4 pts +10) defeated the Smith Family

Ladder

Actually, if Pts stands for Pints, the CD’s should be up towards top spot.

Select Captain’s Comments

Brodie, Young Guns: “We showed some good signs tonight, getting 8 on the powerplay (In the 2nd Set) in particular, DiMargs produced some carnage to give us the lead, and he also pulled out some good shots at the end – We expected a bigger win, but a good start nonetheless.”

Christine, Bowled & The Beautiful: “It was a shocking performance, we were saved at the end by the tiebreak – Thankfully we won!

Amy & Shaun, Missing Moo’s: “It improved from the ‘toin coss’ – We had a big powerplay, getting 5 (To end the 1st Set), and it went on from there.”

“Well done to the CDs, who had a new recruit and definitely outdrank us as a result… we think the source of their power – Their uniforms – Has diminished, after it shrank in the wash over COVID.”

Trevor Chappells vs Marg’s V11

In their first game ‘recognising’ Australia’s most celebrated underarm bowler, the Trevor Chappells, still compromised of captain JT, The Rocket/Don and Ron, took on the Marg’s V11, which could be V11 as in 11-cylinder engine, or it could just be 7 in Roman Numerals, and we’ve completely misread the entry form.

Anyway, the Marg’s were led by Jared, alongside David, and Séan, the Irishman from Ireland, who reminded me that the diacritic mark you see on letters & names is called a fada in Ireland.

See?

That’s what you can learn at midweek Bowls.

1st Set (TCs 10-3)

Marg’s won the toss and bowled first, but the opening end wasn’t something to write home about for pretty much everyone – Ultimately, the Chappells somehow held 4 to open the night, despite the holder (Ron) being at least 3 feet from the jack.

Look at that – You could command a bulk carrier through that head.

The second end would be the first of many long ends on the night, and it turned out to be a perfect length for Ron and his Shark bowls, producing the first ‘toucher’ of the night with a forehand, winning himself a $5 drinks voucher.

To our international viewers, that voucher is recognised as legal tender in Australia.

It actually turned out to be a competitive end, after David produced a shot that went very close to denying Ron the hold, but the Rocket, with his recognisable light blue bowls, managed to get himself narrowly ahead bowling as the skip, and got the measurement to make it a hold of 2 for 6-0.

The 3rd End was another long set-up, as everyone continued to struggle with shot weight in the cool conditions (When shots tend to fly through to the gutter), and in another fairly dour end, it would end up being Jared who got the Marg’s on the board in a narrow measurement from JT, making the score 6-1.

The 4th End saw the Chappells deploy the powerplay, as bowling South-North at Manning Memorial seems to favour the right-handed forehand, which turned out to be the case for Ron, who bowled another pair of well-weighted shots to hold 2 (+2), making to 10-1.

As I recall, it was also on this end where JT got a bit too eager trying to get rid of a couple of ‘dead bowls’ from Rink 4 that had found their way into Rink 3, only to accidentally get rid of one of Séan’s bowls, with the only saving grace being that it was closer to holding on Rink 4 than it was on Rink 3.

Needing a simple hold of 5 on their Powerplay to pinch the set, the Marg’s didn’t quite get there, but thanks to a shot from David, they did at least hold on the final end to make it a 10-3 set win to the Chappells, although the Marg’s would get the mat to start the 2nd Set.

There’s something you don’t see often in Jack Attack – Both teams held on their respective powerplays.

2nd Set (TCs 9-2)

Starting off the 2nd Set, Ron touched the jack for the second time on the night, although he was denied another drinks voucher, apparently because the whistle hadn’t gone.

So it would be a simple hold of 1 to start the set, followed by a lazy hold of 4 on the 2nd End, capped off by Rocket maintaining enough feeling in his fingers to produce this pearler:

Starting the 3rd End, JT, only seconds after describing himself as a “Maverick” to all within earshot, produced his two best shots of the night, finally getting his line right with the dodgy Size 1 super-grips, which tend to show more bias than an Australian cricket commentator.

If you ask me, he did very well to not look closer to Goose.

Combined with Ron’s shot, it was another hold of 3 to make it 8-0.

Then came the 4th End, where both teams decided to deploy the powerplay, and appropriately, it would prove to be the most dramatic, and entertaining, end of the match.

It started off with JT bowling a solid delivery from the lead to hold:

Bowling after Séan, David became the second holder, although he did hit up JT’s holder next to the jack, Jared’s second shot split through the gap between David and JT, missing the jack by inches, then Rocket bowled a beauty to make it a Chappells hold of 2, which it appeared destined to be.

But, in a hilarious turn of events, the Rocket’s last shot was TOO ACCURATE, DISTURBING THE HEAD AND SENDING THE JACK OUT TO THE EDGE OF THE RINK!

So after hastily figuring out the holder using a unit of measurement called a ‘Hilfiger’ (Apparently 1 Hilfiger is equal to 1 Foot) – because who needs measuring tapes – it was actually Jared’s back bowl, some 8 Hilfigers from the jack that held, making the score 8-2, when it could very easily have been 12-0!

Now, it would be unfair to single out Rocket for costing the Chappells a Top 2 spot and $20, because the team’s MAVERICK captain didn’t use their powerplay on either of the ends where the team held 4 and 3.

So with an end to go, the Marg’s only needed to hold all 6 shots to snatch a point for a tied set, and after Jared set the shortest end of the night, they got the perfect start when Séan, who had struggled with narrow lines all night, came good and would hold only 3 feet away from the jack!

The only problem for Séan and the Marg’s was Ron came along and tipped him out….

BY HALF A BOWL’S WIDTH.

And that wasn’t the end of it, because Jared disrupted the head and took the jack, only for Ron’s shot to narrowly remain the holder:

Where’s the Luck Of The Irish when you need it.

Then, with his last shot of the night, the Rocket managed to hit both Séan and Ron’s shots, but unlike Rocket’s 4th end Barry Crocker, this disruption wasn’t enough to stop a Trevor Chappells hold, which would stay at 1, after Séan was judged the second holder by ‘Half a Hilfiger’ ahead of Rocket.

So that capped off a straight sets win for the newly-christened Trevor Chappells, who, just like their namesake in 1981, brought up a win by bowling underarm.

The obvious difference is Richie Benaud won’t be describing Wednesday night’s events as one of the worst things he’s ever seen done on a cricket field.