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On the last day of Spring, and the last day of ‘Movember’, it was time for Week 4 of Manning Jack Attack, and originally it looked like we were staring down the barrel of another warm day, after Tuesday’s weather was so brutal that it was still 30 degrees at midnight, but despite a forecast for 35 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, the sea breeze came in at lunch time and ensured temperatures only ever got to 30 degrees, and by 6:30 the cloud cover and the breeze was in and the temps had dropped right down to 22 degrees.

On the team front, there would be something different this week, as we had the rare event of an ‘organised’ delayed start to a game, which came in the Bowling Stones vs Manning Up clash on Synthetic Rink 7, which was delayed until 7pm due to an end of year assembly at Manning Primary that impacted the availability of both teams, meaning they wouldn’t be able to feature in the Corner to Corner, although myself and Half Price were notified of this weeks in advance and agreed to pair both teams against each other, to avoid any further delays to other teams.

I did ask both teams how their evening went, and both sides stated it was a great night of entertainment..

The assembly was also good.

The Corner To Corner Challenge

As mentioned above, Week 4 marked the second of the Corner to Corner Challenges for this edition of Jack Attack, and thanks to a donation of bar vouchers from stalwart Manning coach Peter Bowden, we were able to give a $20 voucher to the 3rd-placed bowl, rather than just 1st and 2nd as we had done a fortnight ago.

The early benchmark shot came from Gordon of the Top Shots, who sent down a great shot to finish a few feet away from the jack, but with the very next bowl, Buffed Helmets captain Scotty delivered one of the best shots we’ve seen in a Corner To Corner, managing to send down a stone cold draw shot that finished as a resting toucher:

Scotty’s bowl proved to be so good that it baited at least a dozen people into driving (And missing by that much) instead of trying to go for 2nd and 3rd, and in the wash-up Scotty was comfortably the winner of the $30 cash:

With Gordon’s shot bowl holding on to comfortably get the nod for 2nd place and the $20 cash:

And the $20 voucher for 3rd place was a 3-way measure between Heath of Macatac 1, Rede of the Bowled Guys and Tyler from Paul’s Heroes, and after a quick look, Tyler got the $20 voucher:

Ah, there was something ominous about Ten Pin appearing in the background of this photo….

The Overall Night

After the Corner to Corner was done we got straight into the night’s games, and it was a tremendously even night across the 12 games, with just one team recording a double-digit variance win (Compared to 7 last week), and 6 games were decided by tiebreaks, including every rink from Synthetic Rink 4 to Rink 8.

Starting off the top, Macatac 1 were the overall winners on the night with a straight sets +11 shot victory against The CD’s on Grass Rink 4, and despite the CD’s team captain Helen buggering off to Port Hedland (Replaced by Marg’s husband Dave), it was a much closer game than the score might indicate, as Macatac 1 won the 1st Set 8-3, and the CD’s were up 4-2 with an end to go in the 2nd Set, only for the Maccers to hold a lazy 4 on their last end powerplay to win the set 10-4, propelling them from the midpack to top spot.

Showcasing the wild flucations with money places this season, last week +11 shots wasn’t even good enough for 6th on the night, but on Wednesday it was enough to win overall.

2nd overall on the night went to Jack To The Drawing Board on +9 shots, thanks mainly to their 12-2 win in the 1st Set against the Great Bowls of Fire on Synthetic Rink 5, a scoreline that caused Todd to piss and moan about how unfair it was that JTTDB were too good, only for the Great Bowls (With Loose Bruce’s brother Craig substituting for Paul Alphabet) to come back and win the 2nd Set 3-2 to send the game to a tiebreak, but Alex and the team made it a hat-trick of wins by taking out the one-end shootout, propelling them up to 5th place on the ladder with a very healthy variance in their favour.

A half-decent turnaround, considering Alex had half a mind to play for the wooden spoon after their Spring Challenge went up the creek.

3rd place on the night went to Salty Towers, who defeated the Unbelievabowls in straight sets by +8 shots on Synthetic Rink 2 (8-1 4-3), and Steph O’Brien was stunned when she found out the ‘Salties’ were in the money, and interesting fact, despite this being their 3rd win of the season, Wednesday night marked the first time in 4 games that Salty Towers had finished ahead on shot variance.

Another funny story from that game is that the Unbelievabowls didn’t have Barb and Sue unavailable, so Amanda (The sole remaining Unbelievabowler) had to call in her husband Lee and their son (I’ll have to improvise and call him Mini Lee) to fill the void, and Half Price kindly gave Lee a quick lesson before play began, although I can only guess the young fella was watching as well, because his first bowl of the night resulted in a toucher.

The 4th and final money spot went to the Buffed Helmets 1, who defeated Rock N Bowl in straight sets by +5 shots on Grass Rink 3, and it was a big performance from the Buffs (Scotty, Kip & Carmo) after several team members spent the day in Bay 121 of the WACA Members Reserve at Optus Stadium, and while yours truly struggled to pull off the cricket & Jack Attack double stint, evidently it was the perfect warm-up for the Buffs.

Although, none of the money teams got to come up and their collect their money in a formal ceremony, because it was that late in the evening that most people had gone home, and I was that knackered from watching Australia’s top order pummel the West Indies that I didn’t have the energy to do a presentation.

There’s always a first.

Moving on from the money winners, and a major positive from this week’s results is that 23 out of 24 teams have now recorded at least one win this season, and the one team that hasn’t won yet is fully aware of that fact.

The previously putrid Salter Point Spinners, who had substituted team manager Sue with Sue’s daughter Izzy to play alongside Wendy and Wags, finally got their maiden win in Manning Jack Attack thanks to defeating This Is How We Roll in straight sets on Grass Rink 3 (8-7 6-4), in a game that at times resembled ten pin bowling instead of lawn bowls, thanks to the young fellas in This Is How We Roll firing rockets out of their hands, irregardless of who was holding shot.

The saying goes that Winners are Grinners, well, in this case it was Spinners are Grinners because they’re Winners.

Another previously winless team was Stop Drop & Bowl, who had been going so poorly they hadn’t even scored so much as a set win this season, that was until they played the Top Shots on Synthetic Rink 8, and after losing the 1st Set 2-9, Sharyn and friends returned serve to win the 2nd Set 9-3 to break the set drought on the 8th attempt, and having pulled that off, SD&P went on to win the tiebreak, moving them to within 1 point of crawling off the bottom of the ladder.

The Top Shots have now played in 4 tiebreaks in 4 games this season…. They’ve only won 1 of them.

Moving on to Synthetic Rink 4, the feature game of the night was the top of the table duel between Crawshaw CC (In Wilko’s last game of the year before he goes for a European holiday) and the Bowled Guys, and pre-game the Crawshaw residents (Wilko, Decca, Peter, Graeme and Malcolm) were in a state of flux, as Graeme (with an OAM) had to go and fill in for Rock N Bowl, and it seemed Decca was going to fill-in for The Lenny’s, but the Crawshaw rent-a-player service was resolved thanks to the Jack Hunters having 4 players, so our resident Joker would play for the street he lives on.

So Crawshaw jumped out of the blocks and won the 1st Set 7-3, as Decca picked up the first toucher voucher of the night, which wouldn’t be his last encounter with the jack, as demonstrated below:

But that was where the fun ended for Crawshaw, as the Bowled Guys held 3 to start the 2nd Set, going on to win it 7-3 to send the game to a tiebreak, and in a classic case of overkill, Rede, Jamie and Loose Bruce put the full stop on the sentence and held 5 to seal the win, which leaves the Bowled Guys level with Crawshaw at the top of the table on 13 points, although the fact Crawshaw won a set and kept the variance level means they have retained top spot by 3 shots, with just 1 game remaining before the finals.

So that’s Wilko done for this season, and he has said his upcoming holiday will be his first visit to Europe in 35 years, and just so you’re aware Wilko, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia have disappeared from world maps, and there’s this strange currency called a Euro.

Moving on to Grass Rink 1, the Buffed Helmets 2 were drawn against the unbeaten Macatac 2 in a clash of the Terrible 2s, but in a result that could only be described as a greater upset than Buster Douglas clubbing Iron Mike Tyson in Tokyo, Buffs 2 (Cheese, Fuzzy and Carry) came back from dropping the 1st Set 6-14 (5 shots on a last end powerplay will do that) to win the 2nd Set 7-3 thanks to a last end powerplay hold of 2 (4), then big Cheese teamed with Fuzzy to hold 4 in the tiebreak, narrowly surviving 2 drives as Carry avoided the head, which is a polite way of saying he was well short.

I can only assume that the news of this upset reached Graham Arnold in Qatar and inspired the Socceroos to upset Denmark, and on another note, well done to Fuzzy (aka Anthony), because last week he played for Western Australia in the Over 50’s cricket national championships in Adelaide, making 2 half-centuries and making the Team of the Tournament!

Continuing on to Synthetic Rink 1, the Jack Hunters (With former team manager Helen back and playing alongside Fleur) continued their surprisingly good season by knocking off The Lenny’s in straight sets (4-3 5-2), and it was a rough old night for Jarryd and Naomi, who were already shorthanded without Kelsey, then during the game, their luck could be summed up by the fact that Jarryd landed a resting toucher no fewer than twice….

And both times, Fleur came in and sat him out to take shot.

A big result for the Jack Hunters, who are now up to 4th place on the ladder, just 1 point behind the trio of leaders.

Next up, Shapes jumped up to 7th on the ladder by knocking off the Fawesome in straight sets (6-4 4-2) on Synthetic Rink 2, thanks to a pre-game feed of Pizza Shapes and jugs of Swanny D, and on the last end of the game, Shapes deployed the powerplay and were holding at least 5, maybe a full house of 6, which would’ve given them 12 shots and sent them straight up to top spot on the night…

But in what could be described as something resembling a piece of genius, Stewie’s trusty mate Steve came charging through the head with his last bowl, managed to make contact with the jack, dragged it back and gave Fawesome the shot, costing the Shapes boys at least 16 boxes of Pizza Shapes’ (When you consider Coles have a 2 for $5 special) worth of prize money.

On to Synthetic Rink 7, and the tiebreak heartbreakers Ten Pin made it 4 tiebreaks in 4 games this season, this time going to a decider against Paul’s Heroes after Peter, Deb and Coral won the 1st Set 12-5, followed by Maddie, Tyler and Paul’s Heroes responding with an 8-4 2nd Set win, but the Mukinbudin crew found out the hard way that facing Ten Pin in a tiebreak is more dangerous than facing a tiger in a locked cage, and the team who have played in more tiebreaks than any other team in the history of Manning Jack Attack went on to hold 4 to win the one end shootout.

Death, taxes, and Ten Pin in a tiebreak.

And finally, the last game to finish on the night was the delayed game between the Bowling Stones and Manning Up, which was eventually completed somewhere around 8:30pm, one of the latest finishes recorded in Manning Jack Attack, although it could’ve finished a bit earlier had it not gone to a tiebreak, as the Stones won the 1st Set 7-3, then Manning Up responded and won the 2nd Set 5-4, as the Stones only just missed out on getting the 2 shots they needed on the last end:

Then came the tiebreak, and Sonja got one close early in the end, and that shot put the pressure on Manning Up, who suffered a dreaded case of the tiebreak turkeys, and their fate was pretty much sealed when Tiff put another bowl in the count, forcing John to attempt a drive, and to his credit he actually smashed one bowl out, but Tiff getting another bowl in the head proved the difference, as the Stones got the win.

Boy, that was a long old day….

Results

Grass 1: Buffed Helmets 2 (3pts -4) defeated Macatac 2 (2pts +4), 6-14, 7-3, 4-0 in the tiebreak

Grass 2: SPCG Spinners (4pts +3) defeated This Is How We Roll, 8-7, 6-4

Grass 3: Buffed Helmets 1 (4pts +5) defeated Rock N Bowl, 9-6, 4-2

Grass 4: Macatac 1 (4pts +11) defeated CDs, 8-3, 10-4

Synthetic 1: Jack Hunters (4pts +4) defeated The Lenny’s, 4-3, 5-2

Synthetic 2: Salty Towers (4pts +8) defeated Unbelievabowls, 8-1, 4-3

Synthetic 3: Shapes (4pts +4) defeated Fawesome, 6-4, 4-2

Synthetic 4: Bowled Guys (3pts 0) defeated Crawshaw CC (2pts 0), 3-7, 6-2, 5-0 in the tiebreak

Synthetic 5: Jack To The Drawing Board (3pts +9) defeated Great Bowls of Fire (2pts -9), 12-2, 2-3, 1-0 in the tiebreak

Synthetic 6: Bowling Stones (3pts +3) defeated Manning Up (2pts -3), 7-3, 4-5, 1-0 in the tiebreak

Synthetic 7: Ten Pin (3pts +3) defeated Paul’s Heroes (2pts -3), 12-5, 4-8, 4-0 in the tiebreak

Synthetic 8: Stop Drop & Bowl (3pts -1) defeated Top Shots (2pts +1), 2-9, 9-3, 1-0 in the tiebreak

Ladder

A point of clarification about the Buffed Helmets 2 and CD’s in 9th and 10th, seeing as they are level on 10pts and +4 shots…

Using our magical ladder separator, which starts with total points followed by shot variance, the teams couldn’t be separated by 4-point victories (1-1), 3-point victories (2-2), 1-point results (0-0), and number of defeats (1-1), which means we go down to the seventh tiebreaker of alphabetical order, leaving Buffs 2 in 9th after Week 4.

Captain’s Comments

Wags, Salter Point Spinners: “With Sue out I brought in the big gun in this week (Izzy, Sue’s daughter), and once again the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!”

Wilko, Crawshaw CC: “We’re the Crawshaw rent a crowd, loaning players all over the place!”

Decca, Crawshaw CC: “As I soon as I heard the whistle for the first toucher vouchers, I said write the ticket down Jason!”

Cheese, Buffed Helmets 2: “The better team lost”

Stewie, Fawesome: “Last end we were down at least 5 on a powerplay, but me old mate Steve came through and knocked the jack back to us and we held 1!”

Kelly, CD’s: “It was the trifecta of terror, as I was bowling with bowls I’ve never bowled with, I’ve been on a green I haven’t been on for 18 months, and Helen jetted off to Port Hedland and left us with Marg’s husband Dave… and we were playing Macatac!”

Carmo, Buffed Helmets: “Buffed Helmets 1 get in the money, and instead it’s the first time ever I haven’t seen a presentation, another disgraceful performance from JT after he avoided us at the cricket today”

Tiff, Bowling Stones: “It was a beautiful evening at Manning Primary, but it ended more beautifully by defeating the Manning Up team in front of their wife and children”