After weeks turned into months of anticipation, the greatest social bowls competition between Manning Road and the Canning River was BACK for 2021, and while last week’s COVID Cup was a good night out, Jack Attack is Jack Attack, and the serious business could finally begin, with the other big bonus was that the mask mandate had come to an end, meaning it was pretty much back to normal on a Wednesday night.

As mentioned in last week’s report, a record 24 teams have been entered for this edition of Jack Attack, with 7 new teams making their debuts on Wednesday night, and on that note, I’ll kick off the season with a big thanks to all the behind the scenes team for making midweek bowls possible:

Richard ‘Half’ Price steering the ship, Theresa and the bar staff servicing our collective drinking problem, Donna and the kitchen staff with their 6-star steak sandwich, Mark Ellis, Andy Lill and AJ Heal patrolling the greens and assisting the bowlers, and Graham Maples, who’ll tell you bluntly that you need to play with a white jack on the grass and a yellow jack on the synthetic.

In the opinion of this roving reporter, the universe rewarded Pricey for his hard work setting up this year’s comp when his beloved greyhound Honour Rampage drew her favoured Box 8 and won the 10th at Cannington.

As for the playing conditions, there was a thick cloud cover about an hour before play began following a humid day in Perth, but nevertheless it was a perfect evening for bowls, hovering at 22 degrees Celsius with a light Southwesterly breeze, and the sun eventually broke through right as play began at 6:30pm.

The Overall Night

Straight to the top, and the overall winners of night one were the Trevor Chappells, who scored a +18 victory on the Missing Moo’s, and showing what a form reference last week’s COVID Cup meeting proved to be, the Lawn Clippings finished 2nd overall with a +16 win over the Dream Team, who stepped up as a last minute replacement for the Bull Shots, with the damage being done in a 15-0 1st Set, ironically while skipper Ryan was held up at work.

Thanks to the extra funds from 2 additional teams, there’s now a $10 dividend for 3rd overall, which went to debutants The Lenny’s, who finished on +13 (vs The Breakaways) alongside The Unbelievabowls (vs Merkins), but The Lenny’s got the cash on a total shots countback by 19 shots to 17, although the Unbelievabowls won in straight sets versus The Lenny’s tying their 2nd Set 6-6.

Despite another potential error by the judge, with the extra funds, The Unbelievabowls will also receive $10 in the interests of fairness to both teams.

Looking at the other results, and all up it was a fairly even night, as 5 teams took the maximum 4 points, 3 games had a tied set, and 4 games went to tiebreak, the best of which may have been the debut derby between good friends Burrendah and the Soft Girls, as Burrendah lost the 1st Set 2-8 and trailed 0-7 down with 3 ends to play, only to win the 2nd Set 8-7 with a 3 on the final end, followed by the tiebreak win.

Looking at the other results, and all up it was a fairly even night, as 5 teams took the maximum 4 points, 3 games had a tied set, and 4 games went to tiebreak, the best of which may have been the debut derby between good friends Burrendah and the Soft Girls, as Burrendah lost the 1st Set 2-8 and trailed 0-7 down with 3 ends to play, only to win the 2nd Set 8-7 with a 3 on the final end, followed by the tiebreak win.

The Habibs got a game under the MV Wholesale sign on Synthetic 4, but without John, they lost in straight sets to the Young Guns, the T-Birds comfortably defeated Crawshaw, Kochie and the Great Bowls of Fire made the Tie Break Turkeys regret their name change with a comeback win in a tiebreak on the grass, The CDs and the Bowled And The Beautiful acted out a cliff-hanger that came down to the last bowl of the tiebreak, with Helen delivering the goods for the CD’s, and Ten Pins played the role of the Rebels and shattered the Empire Strikes Jack with a comeback tiebreak win of their own.

On another note, I think we can skip the end of season ceremony and award the prize for the best team uniform, because the ladies from The Bowling Stones have sat their shot on the jack when it comes to this season’s best get-up:

Results

Grass 1: CD’s (3pts -2) defeated Bowled & The Beautiful (2pts +2), 2-7, 8-5, 1-0 in the tiebreak

Grass 2: The Lenny’s (3pts +13) defeated The Breakaways, 13-0, 6-6

Grass 3: Unbelievabowls (4pts +13) defeated Merkins, 12-2, 5-2

Grass 4: Lawn Clippings (4pts +16) defeated the Dream Team, 15-0, 7-6

Grass 5: Great Bowls Of Fire (3pts -3) defeated Tie Break Turkeys (2pts +3) 3-9, 6-3, 2-0 in the tiebreak

Synthetic 2: Ten Pins (3pts -3) defeated Empire Strikes Jack (2pts +3) 1-6, 7-5, 1-0 in the tiebreak

Synthetic 3: Trevor Chappells (4pts +18) defeated Missing Moos, 12-2, 10-2

Synthetic 4: Young Guns (4pts +6) defeated the Habibs, 7-3, 7-5

Synthetic 5: T-Birds (4pts +10) defeated Crawshaw Crisis Committee, 5-4, 12-3

Synthetic 6: Bowling Stones (3pts +2) defeated Top Shots (1pt -2), 6-4, 3-3

Synthetic 7: Burrendah (3pts -5) defeated Soft Girls (2pts +5), 2-8, 8-7, 1-0 in the tiebreak

Synthetic 8: Dyed On The Run (3pts +7) defeated Team Pamba (1pt -7), 8-1, 5-5

Captain’s Comments

Brodie, Young Guns: “We were a bit inconsistent, but I thought we all played well – Josh had a good 1st Set, Liam had a good 2nd Set, and that was the first time we’ve beaten the Habibs, third time’s the charm.”

Loose Bruce, T-Birds: “We had a slow start but we got there in the end, we had some good banter with them (Crawshaw) all night.”

Kym, Crawshaw Crisis Committee: “We’ve got an injury concern – Decker’s got kneemonia, he’s pulled a heartilage in his knee, we just hope he doesn’t get arseritis!”

That may explain why Crawshaw had Dr Mark with them.… to check on Decker’s dicky knees.

Kelly & Helen, The CD’s: “Second time lucky on the grass, it came down to the last bowl, but Helen pulled a miracle that Natalie (Who was unavailable) would’ve been proud of!”

Kochie, Great Bowls of Fire: “Still on the honeymoon phase from last season, got to get it into second gear, but we powered on through in the tiebreak against the Tie Break Turkeys.”

John, Tie Break Turkeys: “We lost in a tiebreak, the boys have said they still have confidence in me as a captain, and any reports of a change are unfounded and premature.”

Ladder

The Trevor Chappells vs Missing Moo’s

After getting back in a bowling groove in the COVID Cup, the Trevor Chappells began another Jack Attack campaign against familiar opponents the Missing Moo’s, who developed some kind of a rivalry with the old Team Hope during a series of encounters in 2019, but a bucket of cold water was poured on the fire when the teams didn’t meet in 2020, and Manning Memorial favourites Presto and Filthy Phil couldn’t bowl anymore due to prior work commitments.

The pool table at the club has hardly been touched in their absence.

Still, the Moo’s had the familiar faces of Amy and Shaun, bowling with two pairs of Emu bowls, plus their mate Sam, who bowled for Alpha Tauri last season, and Isobel, with Shaun playing every end as the others rotated, while the Trevor Chappells had the familiar lineup of JT, Rocket and Ron.

Now, last week I mentioned that Ron was going to miss this week, as his horse Regal Poyse was nominated for the Wednesday Bunbury meeting, but after Pricey had helped set up the great John Duffy as a super sub, Ron was good to go again when he let us know the mare was scratched.

However, we may still see Duff again, with this week being Rocket’s only appearance for this edition of Jack Attack, as he’s got a few personal matters to attend to in Victoria, and won’t be back until just after Easter.

Funnily enough, the 17th was Ash Wednesday, so it looks I’m giving up my father for Lent.

1st Set (Trevor Chappells 12-2)

As the clock struck 6:30, the Trevor Chappells called heads and won the toss, and JT set the tone as the lead with solid shots, but in a random turn of events, Ron missed the 1st End after he went to the bar for another beer, where joke master Noelene was apparently showing a photo of her grandkids to Theresa and kept a few people waiting.

So in another strange scene, Rocket had to bowl 4 shots on the opening end, and despite never having bowled with Ron’s shark bowls, he was able to make an impact on the score sheet by knocking in his own brown bowl to give the Chappells a hold of 3, with Amy’s Emu the fourth bowl.

The 2nd End was much closer, as another JT lead bowl held for most of the end, with most shots ending up closer to Rink 2 than the kitty, and summing up the early luck of the Missing Moo’s, it looked like Shaun bowled a wicked spinning backhand shot to take the hold, but like most emus, the emu bowl just didn’t want to take a backward step, and just to cap it off, it settled in between, but slightly behind, JT and Rocket, so it was a hold of 3 for 6-0.

With luck like that, if Shaun had jumped out of a boat, he’d have hit jagged rocks.

The damage just kept piling up on the 3rd end, as a backhand from Shaun that sett couldn’t prevent the Chappells from another hold of 4, and with 2 ends to go, the Set was as good as done with the lead now 10-0.

The 4th End was also largely forgettable, as the Chappells had another simple hold of 2, although in a small positive for the Missing Moo’s, Isobel and her chocolate brown bowls actually managed to get in the head and finished up as the 3rd holder, after a couple of ends of struggle with finding the right line/weight.

So on a double powerplay final end, trailing 12-0, the Missing Moo’s only needed a full count of 6 to pinch a point, which, as the 12th Man would say, wasn’t an impossible task, but pretty close to it.

Thanks to Sam with some consistent line and length, the Moo’s did hold on an end for the first time on the night, but a full house was never on, and the set would finish 12-2.

Amy did mention that she disliked playing on the synthetic… that scoreline probably backs her comments up.

2nd Set (Trevor Chappells 10-2)

With the jack in their control and the chance to build some momentum, the Missing Moo’s were once again in an early hole when JT edged out Sam on the leads, followed by Ron sitting a shot right on the jack, with Rocket finishing as the second holder to make it 3-0, the fourth time in six ends that the Trevor Chappells had held at least 3 shots.

But, the 2nd End was the highlight of the night.

First, JT was sitting half a foot from the jack after a very competitive lead duel with Amy:

Next, starting the second pairs, Ron managed to sneak one in just ahead of Amy to make the hold 2, despite 4 bowls now being within a foot and a half of the jack:

Now, at this moment Sam was beckoning for Isobel, who bowled second on this end, to try and knock in Amy’s bowl just to the right of the jack….

And showcasing that anything is possible, Isobel hit the bowl dead centre and pushed it in, making it near impossible to tell who was holding:

Then, Shaun gave everyone a heart attack by threading a shot that nudged the Moo’s potential holder, but the bowl pretty much stayed as it was (Sparing Shaun a beating from Sam), and when AJ’s tape measure was brought down, it turned out we didn’t even need the tape to find out the holder was JT by no more than a finger nail:

It looked like it was going to be 5-0 on the 3rd End, when Ron had a comfortable hold in his pocket after beating out Sam, who had originally knocked out JT:

But the Rocket misfired, as Rockets (Especially those from North Korea) tend to do from time to time, and his last shot smacked out Ron’s bowl, giving the hold to Amy, but the Moo’s missed the chance to make it 2 shots on the last bowl.

With a window back into the game, Sam set the jack on the 4th End, and next thing you know, he hit it on his first shot, but cruel luck, AJ blew his whistle 5 minutes later to give a voucher to the next toucher, although the devastated big fella had cut the score to 4-2:

So on another double powerplay final end to a set, it was a straightforward equation – If The Missing Moo’s held 1, it was a tied set and game over (As the Trevor Chappells won the 1st Set), and if the Moo’s held at least 2 shots, it was off to a tiebreak.

Trying to make it as difficult as possible, the jack was barely a foot past the start of the blue line and the mat was a good 10 feet from the T, but it turned out to be so short that the Moo’s themselves couldn’t even get enough weight on their shots to reach the head, and JT just had to curl a shot around Sam to hold for most of the end, but it wasn’t over:

With the Chappells definitely holding at least 1 shot (Which turned out to be 3 with the back bowls), Shaun was advised to try an old fashioned line drive on his last shot, and although it did send JT’s original holder to parts unknown, the shot went with it, and with Rocket definitely holding on the last shot of the night, it was game set and match, and just to cap it off, the two Chappells back bowls made it 3 turned into 6 on the powerplay, which made the final score 12-2 and 10-2, giving the Trevor Chappells the biggest win of the night at +18 shots.

Still, if you go back and look through some of those ends in the 2nd Set, a 10-2 scoreline didn’t do justice to the Missing Moo’s, but the damage was done earlier in the night.