Perhaps it was fitting that the greatest community bowls comp between Manning Road and the Canning River recommenced on Remembrance Day, because I’d wager a few bowlers almost forgot Jack Attack was still on during the fortnight away.

Anyway, it was good to be back for the final 3 weeks of Manning Jack Attack, and starting on the team front, the competition is now up to a record 24 teams, with the official inclusion of The Bowling Stones II (So they aren’t confused with last season’s Champion team), and a scratch team called the Ring Ins, made up of reserve players from other teams, who were formed just so there wasn’t an uneven 23 teams.

I can announce the Ring Ins will be officially renamed ‘The Orphans’ from next week.

Still, it’s a fantastic effort from everyone involved (Especially you Half Price) to reach that milestone, in the most chaotic year in living memory.

On another note, thanks to ‘information’ from S.cool Dads captain John, we can report that a hearing was conducted at the Court of Arbitration for Sport into the circumstances of the Week 1 match between Crawshaw Crisis Committee (CCC) and the S.cool Dads.

Drawing heavily on hearsay evidence that CCC captain Wilky had uttered the words, “What, are we only supposed to be using three bowlers, we’ve been using four”, the Court found that the behaviour of the CCC was unscrupulous, and that they had indeed bowled two extra bowls for each of the first two ends.

The Court levelled no criticism at the S.cool Dads for paying no attention whatsoever, and declared henceforth that the CCC now sit alongside the infamous 1919 Chicago ‘Black’ Sox, the 2000 Spanish Paralympic Basketball Team, Lance Armstrong, and Tonya Harding as creating one of the great sporting scandals in history.

Offering no comment, CCC captain Wilky was last seen speedily departing the hearing:

The Overall Night

One thing that hasn’t changed since the break is the cool Wednesday night weather, with temperatures hovering around 17 degrees Celsius when play began at 6:30, thanks to the lingering cold front that hit Perth on Monday and Tuesday, although if there was an upside, there was hardly any breeze to speak of, and there was no rain in sight.

The Rocket (Trevor Chappells) remarked that with all these cool nights, the competition should’ve been called Jacket Attack, a joke I later stole from him without permission.

Turning to the results, and the the biggest win of the night and the $30 cash went to the Lawn Clippings with a +15 drubbing of Missing Moo’s, who probably need to send an SOS to Filthy Phil and Presto with the way they’re tracking, and claiming 2nd and the $20 were the Top Shots with a +14 win over the Lockdown.

There’s a strange trend with the Lawn Clippings where they lose in a tiebreak one week, then respond with a massive win and get the 20 or 30 bucks.

Meantime, there’s been a change at the top of the ladder – The Trevor Chappells stayed unbeaten in the epic unbeaten clash against Week 3 leaders Great Bowls Of Fire, but even with that win, the Chappells couldn’t go top, because the new leaders of Jack Attack are the still-unbeaten Ten Pin by the barest of margins!

Both teams sit on 14 points, but Ten Pin are ahead by +1 on shot differential with 2 matches to go, with the Lawn Clippings looking ominous in 3rd.

Looking at the other noteworthy outcomes, the Bowlshoviks pulled one on club sponsors the Habibs in a tiebreak, and congratulations should go to both the Marg’s V11 and Shiny Shiny Lawn Bowls, who recorded their first wins for the season in tiebreaks, which leaves the S.cool Dads as the only regular team who haven’t recorded a win, after Team 180 threw a bullseye on them in a tiebreak.

Finally, there was the ‘Debut Derby’ between Bowling Stones II and the Ring Ins on Synthetic Rink 1, and it appears at the whim of Half Price, Tiffany and the Bowling Stones have received what could be described as a ‘Trumpesque’ victory on debut, in that they were well and truly beaten by the ‘Orphans’, but were declared the winners.

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: Marg’s V11 (3pts -3) defeated Hyperbowles (2pts +3) – Marg’s V11 won 2-0 in a tiebreak

Grass 2: T-Birds (3pts +1) defeated Bowled & The Beautiful (2pts -1) – T-Birds won 1-0 in a tiebreak

Grass 3: Top Shots (4pts +14) defeated Lockdown

Grass 4: Alpha Tauri (3pts, +3) defeated COVID Shots (1pt -3) – 2nd Set was a 4-4 tie

Grass 5: Ten Pin (4pts +8) defeated Young Guns

Synthetic 1: Bowling Stones (4pts +9) defeated Ring Ins – Please note, the Ring Ins ‘might’ have won

Synthetic 2: Team 180 (3pts -3) defeated S.Cool Dads (2pts +3) – Team 180 won 1-0 in a tiebreak

Synthetic 3: Shiny Shiny Lawn Bowls (3pts +9) defeated Babes With Balls (2pts -9) – Shiny Shiny Bowls won 1-0 in a tiebreak

Synthetic 4: The Bowlshoviks (3pts -1) defeated The Habibs (2pts +1) – Bowlshoviks won 1-0 in a tiebreak

Synthetic 5: Trevor Chappells (4pts +4) defeated Great Bowls Of Fire

Synthetic 6: Crawshaw Crisis Committee (3pts +3) defeated CDs (1pt -3) – 2nd Set was a 4-4 tie

Synthetic 7: Lawn Clippings (4pts +15) defeated Missing Moo’s

Select Captain’s Comments

Alex, The Bowlshoviks: “Even though the Bolsheviks lost the Cold War, we won tonight, and that’s more important right now – The Habibs were very good, and I hope they keep sponsoring the club!”

Tiffany, Bowling Stones II: “It was a bit disappointing to split us up, but the Bowling Stones did win in a Trumpesque style victory, with the last bowl being decided by a measurement!”

Helen & Nat, CD’s: “We lost the 1st Set on the last end, then drew the 2nd and that was it – It was devastating.”

“Don’t know what happened – Maybe it was pressure, a full moon, the weather, we couldn’t find our bowls, Helen had Uncle Don’s bowls and they didn’t do any good.”

Chris, Shiny Shiny Lawn Bowls: “We were more like Shiny Disco Bowls tonight, because we came from nowhere to outshine the Babes With Balls in a tiebreak for our first win!”

Ladder

Trevor Chappells vs Great Bowls of Fire

First up from the break, the Trevor Chappells (JT, Rocket Rod and Ron) found themselves in the Match Of The Night, an unbeaten top of the ladder showdown on centre rink against the Jerry Lee Lewis tribute team….

Goodness gracious, Great Bowls Of Fire!

It was another meeting with Jack Attack favourites ‘Loose’ Bruce, Jamie, and Rede, who was bowling with a pair of ‘horse’ bowls that were apparently manufactured in 1973, with a briefcase that came with a guide to Perth’s bowling clubs, with compliments from none other than the recently revived Ampol.

Given it was 1973, I’m surprised it wasn’t compliments of Craven Mild.

There’s been a recent history of close matches between the Great Bowls and the team formerly known as Team Hope – Back in February of 2019, the Great Bowls won a hard-fought match in a tiebreak, which was the only defeat Team Hope suffered on the way to the title, and in February of 2020, Jamie bowled the Great Bowls to victory in another tiebreak.

Both those games were on the grass, whereas this was on synthetic, but rest assured, it was going to be hard fought.

1st Set (Trevor Chappells 6-5)

The Trevor Chappells won the toss and bowled first, and through 8 shots on the opening end, it was looking pretty good for the Chappells, with Ron and JT holding 2…

But up stepped Bruce, who certainly didn’t look loose with his opening shot, slotting in between the former holders with a well-weighted forehand, managing to survive a Rocket shot that split the gap between the holder and JT’s second holder, drawing first blood for the Great Bowls.

On the 2nd End, Ron was narrowly holding over Rede riding on one of his horses with a jack high delivery:

But up stepped Rocket, who almost sent things pear-shaped when he bowled a mollydooker forehand that knocked out Ron’s shot, but thankfully for the Chappells, the shot sat jack high, and just on a foot ahead of Rede, to tie the scores at 1 apiece.

It wasn’t the last time that happened on Wednesday night… in fact, it wasn’t even the second to last time it happened.

The 3rd End was even closer, as Jamie held narrowly ahead of JT after bowling as the leads, but Ron went even better than the son of Loose Bruce, slotting in just behind the former holder, about a foot from the kitty, and that made it 2-1 Trevor Chappells with 2 ends to play.

The 4th End was good length, but from a Trevor Chappells perspective, it was like they’d shut the land border and called a lockdown around the kitty.

From 6 shots, 5 were genuine crap, 1 was bloody ordinary, and the final hold looked like Jamie and Bruce enjoying a practice session, as the Great Bowls of Fire held a very simple 4 to make it 5-2 with an end to go.

They broke our will… Oh what a thrill!

The obvious problem on an end that successful was not using the Powerplay, which both teams held off until the last end, as the Chappells needed to hold 2 to pinch the 2 points.

The 5th End was tense, it was tight, but from what we could see, Ron had most likely held for the Trevor Chappells, but it would come down to a measurement to determine the second holder, as JT’s poor use of Auslan made it impossible to tell who was ahead.

At first glance, you’d comfortably say either/or Bruce & Jamie were second holder, but Rede whipped out the measuring tape, confirming Ron had held, but it was now down to the crucial second holder between Ron and Jamie.

In something you had to see to believe, there was quite literally no more than 2mm between Ron’s second shot and Jamie, but somehow someway, the Chappells got the second holder, and with the Powerplay, took the set from the clouds.

Now that the Trevor Chappells were ahead, JT dispatched lawyers to the Supreme Court to demand that they STOP THE COUNT.

In the meantime, play continued.

2nd Set (Trevor Chappells 5-2)

With the momentum back in favour of the underarm legends, Ron started the 2nd Set with another fantastic shot..

But for the second time on the night, Rocket gave Ron an old-fashioned hip and shoulder to take over as holder, and it probably cost the Chappells a hold of 2, with the jack high shots of the Great Bowls keeping the hold to 1.

The 2nd End was the longest end possible, which would conceivably give everyone the chance to apply a smidgen more weight and a wider line on a cool night, but it didn’t exactly work out that way, as pretty much nobody found the right weight & line, and in the wash-up, JT held 1, and the long ends mysteriously disappeared.

On the 3rd End, Jamie got the Great Bowls on the board in the set with his first shot, and nobody really came close to displacing it cutting the deficit to 2-1 with 2 ends remaining.

With the mat and the kitty at their disposal, Bruce called the powerplay for the Great Bowls, which didn’t quite work out thanks to the efforts of Ron, who had obscured the line with two consistent shots that served as the first and second holders.

Once again, JT’s use of sign language made life much harder for everyone.

With one shot remaining, Loose Bruce had one last resort.

THE DRIVE.

The captain produced a forehand swing that John Daly would’ve admired, and the shot got mightily close, but it only skimmed the outside of the holder and pushed it onto the line, keeping the hold at 2 with a shot to come.

Just to rub salt into the flesh wound, Rocket’s shot hit Ron’s for the third time on the night, but this time it did far more good than potential harm, and the Trevor Chappells looked home with a hold of 3 for a 5-1 lead.

A Great Bowls hold of 5 to force a tiebreak never really looked likely on the final end, although Jamie did initially set his teammates up as the lead with a jack high shot about a foot from the kitty, before Ron settled just ahead of him to hold ahead of the final pairs…

But Rocket wasn’t done causing carnage, as he bowled one last forehand that little bit too well, and knocked out Ron for the fourth time on Wednesday evening, returning the final hold to the Great Bowls, who ended a disappointing night with a minor consolation, but the lack of a set win would cost them dearly on the ladder.

It turned out that slight error on the last end cost the Trevor Chappells top spot, considering it was effectively a 3-shot swing with the powerplay, and Ten Pin are now ahead by +1.

But, as Buddy Franklin once said after Hawthorn won a Qualifying Final, we’re just happy to get the 4 points.