In the ever colourful world of Thursday 5th Division Perth Metro pennants, the sun was beating down on a 32 degree day, and Manning, off the back of 3 consecutive defeats, had a home matchup against Willetton, with yours truly leading for Ian, a pennants rookie like myself, Bruce, one of only two people in Perth who drinks James Boags Premium Light, and our trusty skip Michael Alphabet, now the 748th-most well-known Greek Australian in the universe, after George Kambosos Jr. planted a few haymakers on Teo Lopez’ chin to became the unified Lightweight world champion this morning.

Many people who have played with Michael will let you know of his semi-catchphrase, “I like you, but you bowl s**t!”, which is typically uttered when one of his teammates doesn’t cut the mustard.

Now, one feature of pennants is that every player has to fill out a feedback slip for the selectors, in which you grade yourself and your teammates performances on a scale from 1 to 5, and it’s fair to say that early on, at least three of us were going to be lucky to get a 1/5, because our rink only held shot(s) on 2 out of the first 13 ends (One of which we got 4 shots), although I felt we were genuinely unlucky, because there were a good 5 ends where we had 3 out of the first 4 bowls in the count but didn’t get the hold, as ‘Willie’ would seemingly always manage to put one good bowl in there.

Hehehehe, Willie and bowls.

So all that said, the consequence of only holding 2 out of 13 ends was that we were in a 5-14 hole with 8 ends to play, and as we switched ends with the skips on the 12th End, Michael walked up to myself, Bruce and Ian, and in his distinctive elderly Greek accent, pointed his finger at Bruce and Ian and said:

“You, you, I give you ONE!”

Although Michael was apparently impressed with my consistent performance as lead, because he then turned to me and said:

“You, I give you FIVE!“

The irony being that Michael, to use his famous words, bowled like s**t playing skip, and was lucky to get a 2/5 from all of us… I think the main problem was his blue cowboy hat kept blowing off his head when he went to bowl, and he’d put himself off.

As for the rest of the game, we cut the score back to 9-14 after 15 ends, then inexplicably gave up a 6 after Ian’s holder was hit out on the last bowl, and we were incapable of getting another bowl in the head, although hilariously, we then held a 6 of our own two ends later to get the score back to 15-21 with 3 ends to play, and despite coming home with the biggest wet sail since Australia II, we lost 19-21, which is the fourth pennants game out of four that I’ve lost by no more than 6 shots (4,1,6 & 2).

Although I was satisfied with my personal performance, which resulted in a 4/5 from Mr Alphabet, and I could’ve received a 3/5, because on the 20th End, Alphabet buggered off to the toilet when I rolled the jack into the ditch, only for him to come back and see that I’d trailed the jack, so I stayed at a 4, which represents playing ‘Above Average’.

Thankfully, our 2-shot defeat was a mere slap on the arm overall, because we comfortably won on aggregate 88-38, thanks to Grahame’s team winning 25-12, and in the most violent scoreline of any Manning team on Thursday, Fred’s team won 44 to 5:

Yes, Brian Taylor plays at Willetton…. but not that Brian Taylor.