On an important note, this is the last Wednesday before the ‘midseason bye’, which Pricey has jokingly claimed is because the majority of social bowlers won’t be fit enough to back up from a big Melbourne Cup Day.

The official reason is the Ladies’ Pennants matches are usually on Tuesdays, but because of Cup Day at the club, they’ve been pushed back to Wednesday, which means Jack Attack will have to hold off for a week.

Still, if my bank balance doesn’t run dry by Tuesday, I’d bet my bottom dollar someone’s not going to get the message, and show up.

Anyway, Wednesday night rolled around and it was time for Week 3 of the ‘Summer’ Manning Jack Attack competition (Even thought it’s still spring), and hasn’t time just flown by.

On the team fronts, Team Smith are now known as the Top Shots, while we’ll be seeing a new team known as The Bowling Stones from November 11, who are totally unrelated to the most recent Jack Attack champions led by Brad & Cheryl Hogg, although I have suggested to Cheryl that if the Stones do come back in 2021, they could use another musical bowls name like ‘The Bay City Rollers’ and wear tartan.

The new Stones spent the night being taught the fundamentals of lawn bowls on synthetic Rink 1, which was right next to the game between the Trevor Chappells and Alpha Tauri, however they were all understanding that mistakes might be made.

Overall Night

The night began with the first Corner To Corner Challenge of the season, and the glory went to Derek/Decker from the Crawshaw Crisis Committee, who saved the best for last, and took the $30 prize WITH THE LAST SHOT!

There would’ve been a lovely photo of Deck with his winning shot for this report, but Kim pinched the winnings and moved the bowl before Deck even got to the other end to marvel at his own handywork, plus it was 6:41 and we had to get the matches started.

The overall winners on the night were THE BOWLSHOVIKS, who returned to the winners circle with a +17 thumping of the Bowled & The Beautiful, and coming in 2nd (After their overall win last week) were The CDs on +13, although it was worth noting they still got taken to a tiebreak by the COVID Shots, who came back from 4-1 down after 4 ends to win the 2nd Set 5-4 with the powerplay (The CDs won the 1st 16-2), but the ladies love their synthetic surface, and pulled out the win.

Chris (Kelly’s other half) noted after the night was over that the ladies clearly don’t need Nat’s CDs to win, although none of the ladies were able to stick around and grab their $20, so we gave it to Kochie for a laugh….

Just kidding.

Overall, it was the closest Wednesday of the 3 so far, with 6 out of 10 games going to tiebreaks, 2 games having drawn sets, and there was a slice of Manning Jack Attack history for the Missing Moo’s and Ten Pin…

They played in the first recorded Manning Jack Attack game to have 2 tied sets!

6-6 in the 1st Set, 3-3 in the 2nd Set, but Ten Pin bowled a strike in the tiebreak and knocked over the formerly unbeaten Moo’s.

The other formerly unbeaten team to crash this week was the Young Guns, who were defeated by the Habibs, leaving Ten Pin, the Trevor Chappells, and now in the outright lead after their tiebreak win….

Goodness Gracious, Great Bowls of Fire!

The Lawn Clippings sure did have their nerves shaken and their brains rattled in that tiebreak.

And finally, congratulations should also go to the Babes With Balls, Team 180 and the Lockdown, who each scored their first wins of the season, although Lockdown won by default after the Marg’s V11 never turned up.

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: Great Bowls of Fire (3 pts -3) defeated Lawn Clippings (2pts +2) – 2-0 in a tiebreak

Grass 2: Team 180 (3pts -4) defeated Shiny Shiny Lawn Bowls (2pts +4) – 2-0 in a tiebreak

Grass 3: Habibs (3pts +5) defeated Young Guns (1pt -5) – 2nd Set was a 4-4 draw

Grass 4: Babes With Balls (3pts -3) defeated S.cool Dads (1pt +3) – The Babes won 2-0 in a tiebreak

Synthetic 2: Trevor Chappells (3pts +7) defeated Alpha Tauri (1pt -7) – 1st Set was a 3-3 draw

Synthetic 3: T-Birds (3pts +3) defeated Top Shots (2pts -3) – T-Birds won 1-0 in a tiebreak

Synthetic 4: CDs (3pts +13) defeated COVID Shots (2pts -13) – CDs won 1-0 in a tiebreak

Synthetic 5: Ten Pin (3pts 0) defeated Missing Moo’s (2pts 0) – 1st Set was a 6-6 tie, 2nd Set was a 3-3 tie, Ten Pin won 3-0 in a tiebreak

Synthetic 6: Marg’s VII weren’t able to attend, so the Lockdown were given a default winning score of 4pts +12 by Half Price.

Synthetic 7: The Bowlshoviks (4pts +17) defeated Bowled & The Beautiful

Synthetic 8: Crawshaw Crisis Committee (4pts +8) defeated Hyperbowles

Captain’s Comments

Gary, COVID Shots: “We were hopeless, it was just luck we came back, Christine almost got us home!”

Kochie, T-Birds: “Coming up against the Coles crew, we were lucky to survive – Dodged a bullet after it went to a tiebreak, overall it was a good close game.”

Shaun, Missing Moos: “2 games on the grass before going back on the synthetic probably hurt us, a couple of adjustments, and we’ll be back in 2 weeks.”

Kim, Crawshaw Crisis Committee: “I needed to redeem myself after needlessly losing on the last bowl last week.”

“There’s no I in team, but there is an I in WIN, and there is 6 in Individual Brilliance.”

Standings

Trevor Chappells vs Alpha Tauri

Still in shock from winning thanks to Kim’s last bowl in last Wednesday’s tiebreak, the Trevor Chappells were out to maintain their unbeaten start against the team formerly known as Moo’s Mates, the freshly renamed ALPHA TAURI.

The reason behind the name is that like Alpha Tauri (Formerly Toro Rosso) in Formula One, they’re the junior team to the more ‘successful’ big brother (Red Bull/Missing Moo’s), so in that case, don’t be surprised to see bowler swapping between the teams, as the Moo’s determine who will be the Alex Albon that gets punted out of their lineup.

The No.1 driver for the ‘Scuderia’ was Pace/Pacey (Apparently because he’s got none of it), who was the Pierre Gasly of the team, joined by Sam, who appropriately had a pair of forest green bowls with an F1 car on them, and Elise, whose name I have probably spelled incorrectly, who seemed to be fairly new to lawn bowls.

Set 1 (3-3 Tie)

Alpha Tauri won the toss and bowled first, on what was a cool Spring night with an intermittent southwesterly breeze, which made the synthetic green quicker than a WACA pitch in December, which also made JT switch back to the super grip ‘Bell’ bowls.

On the opening end, it looked like being a tight measurement between Sammy and JT, but the Rocket, bowling with purple bowls this time around, was able to knock one of JT’s shots into the head between both bowls, guaranteeing a hold of 1 for the Chappells to start the night.

On another long 2nd End, Ron took the jack without getting a drinks voucher, but it didn’t work out for the Chappells, as the kitty settled right next to Pacey’s shot in amidst 3 Chappell underarm deliveries, although looking at the final result, you’d think Alpha Tauri would’ve held even without the toucher, and the scores were thus tied at 1 apiece.

Now, this 3rd End could go down as a contender for the coveted Bowl Of The Year.

After the first 2 pairs, Ron was quite easily holding 2 after two fantastic shots, and it was looking very good for the Trevor Chappells as it came down to the final 2 bowls….

Until you see what Pacey did with a forehand on his last shot to beat Ron by an untrimmed nose hair.

As old Ben Kenobi would say, there is no such thing as luck.

Without the aid of a video replay, if I could give you a comparison of how good that delivery was, think of this shot by Nick Brett earlier this year.

Anyway, Pacey’s shot really did happen, to the bewilderment of almost everyone, and Alpha Tauri took the lead 2-1.

The lead doubled on the 4th End when Sam was able to knock his shot in off Pacey, and with how quickly the green was playing on the night, nobody was able to get close to breaking the hold, and thus, with an end to play, it was 3-1 to the F1 team, in something of a surprise result!

It was also worth noting the interesting bowling order the Alphas used – Pacey would bowl one shot as the lead, then Sam and Elise would bowl their pair, which honestly didn’t seem to change much, then Pacey would come back to bowl the last shot.

I’m not sure if it’s legal, but they each bowled 2 shots, which is good enough for me.

So it came down to the 5th End, which served as a double powerplay, after both teams completely forgot they could at least try and use it earlier in the set, which was a crucial lack of decision making in the Chappells’ case, who now only needed to hold 1 to tie the set, and 2 to win.

8 bowls in, after surviving several stray bowls from the ladies getting a bowling lesson on Rink 1, Ron had put the Chappells in the perfect position to win the set at the last gasp, thanks to another pair of damn fine shots:

Even still, the Chappells didn’t feel totally confident, especially with Pacey stepping up to the mat.

Just as he did on that 3rd End, the ‘AT’ skipper bowled a beauty, and got his shot right into the head after hitting a one of JT’s short bowls…

But missed the holder by next to nothing, and in what seemed like a fair result, the set was a 3-3 tie!

Now I previously mentioned that Pacey was the Pierre Gasly of the team, but honestly, with the way he was keeping the Alpha Tauris in it, he was more like Charles LeClerc dragging Ferrari along.

So a tied 1st Set, meaning it was a simple 1 set shootout for the win.

Set 2 (Trevor Chappells 11-4)

In something of a statement, on the first bowl of the set, JT took the jack, and it seemed to knock the Alpha Tauris out of rhythm, because they weren’t able to adjust their lines, and for the first time all night (Excluding the powerplay), there was a hold of more than 1 shot, as the Chappells went 3-0 ahead.

Trying to peg back the deficit, Alpha Tauri went the Powerplay on the 2nd End, which in theory, was a good idea, especially with how well Pacey had bowled…..

The only problem was they didn’t actually land a shot in bounds.

5 bowls ended up in the ditch, and Sam bowled a shot that settled on Rink 1.

The end result was the Trevor Chappells had just about the easiest hold of 5 you’ll ever see, which could’ve been a full set of 6, had JT not put his second shot in the gutter.

You know you’re in trouble when the trainees on Rink 1 are landing more shots in play than you are.

With an 8-0 lead and the Powerplay stifled, on the 3rd End, JT somehow hit the jack on his opening bowl AGAIN, and it’s at this point he feels the need to toot his own horn, AGAIN.

After another near miss from Rink, 1, The Rocket managed to hit the holder, potentially exposing the jack to another of Pacey’s trick shots, but it never came, and with Ron edging out Sam, it was another hold of 3, and 11-0 with 2 ends to go.

With Alpha Tauri needing to hold 6 on both ends to win, it was, as the 12th Man would say, not an impossible task, but pretty close to it.

To be fair to them, Alpha Tauri did hold 3 on that 4th End thanks to Sam’s good work, which was their best hold all night, even if it did mean the game was now out of reach.

So with an end to go and the result sealed, the Trevor Chappells took their powerplay, but Pacey pretty comfortably held 1 from JT, surviving all sorts of weirdness on the final end, from Elise suddenly having the confidence to go for a drive, to both Rocket’s shots managing to pass through both the holder and the second holder.

So that was the set 11-4, and the win to the Trevor Chappells in a fairly anti-climatic ending, and all told, were it not for those brilliant shots from Pacey in the 1st Set, that game would’ve been a straight sets win.

We’ll be back in a fortnight.