After conquering Ellenbrook on Sectional Saturday, JT, Sam Perica, Mighty Mick Marovic and Paul Smith joined all the Men’s & Women’s sectional winners in making the trek to Victoria Park-Carlisle for the first of the knockouts, and it was quite a personal journey since the last time I’d played at Vic Park-Carlisle, which was in a Midweek 5th Division game at the start of March last year, which was actually the first game Vic Park hosted only a month after their greens were damaged by a bunch of football-playing hooligans in studs.

We lost our rink 9-25, lost the aggregate by 1 shot, Division 5 got relegated the next week (This was before Bowls WA did away with 6th Divsion, although they wound up offering the club a vacant spot in 5th Division), and I remember feeling pretty damn useless that night.

How time flies.

There’s also two major changes at Vic Park since I was last there – Former Manning character Lee ‘Lord’ Such has joined the club and become the Men’s Captain, also enticing a two-game cameo from his old St Johns Park teammate (And Australian player) Ben Twist, and they split their back green in half to fit in a roller hockey rink.

The sound of a puck smacking the back wall became familiar.

So, in the first game (The Alignment Round) of a sunny and humid Sunday morning, we played another sectional winner from Ellenbrook, the all-Joondalup team of Stein Davies, Paul Kain, John ‘Celtic’ Carrigan (He even had the bowls to confirm his support for the Bhoys), and resident South African Frank ‘The Tank’ Tyson, who drew the short straw and was the designated driver for the drive to the south.

Funnily enough, I actually met Frank (In his Joondalup hoodie) at the Waterford TAB last year, although neither of us were prepared to admit it.

As for the conditions, we landed on A Green first up, and as we found out, A Green at Vic Park was running even slower than our struggling grass at Manning (13 seconds at best), and it was a bit of a shock to the system after playing on a true Synthetic at Ellenbrook 24 hours earlier, and our efforts at focusing on the job at hand weren’t helped by Mick being more intent on selling some kind of air-conditioning system to a bloke that had driven all the way to Vic Park to pick it up.

Answering your phone on the green used to be a fine.

Used to be.

We did go on to drop the first 3 shots of the game, but gained them back to tie it 3-3 after 4 ends, and an early flashpoint was when Joondalup were holding 2 on the 5th End with Stein having last shot, and to his credit he bowled a damn good bowl that got the jack and appeared to put us 3 down, but then the fabled Aero flop came in to play, and pushed the jack over to Mick’s bowl 2 foot away to put us 1 up for 6-3.

As a wise man once said, in my experience there’s no such thing as luck.

However, as play progressed through the middle ends, Stein and the Joondalup crew handled the conditions a little bit better than we did and tied the score at 8 apiece after 11 ends, one end resulted in us calling in the umpire for a tight measure, which cost us 15 minutes because he didn’t have the right kit on hand:

Just as momentum had gone against us and our State Fours journey looked like ending at lunchtime, we picked up a big 3 (The only 3 of the entire game) to lead 11-8, then made it 12-8 with 2 to play, and from there we took advantage of the buffer in a low scoring game to hold Joondalup to 1 on the penultimate end, and Stein’s team were never able to build a number and put pressure on us on the final end, so we moved on to the Round of 16 with a 13-9 win!

If you want to have another laugh, I took my Coles bag with me because I figured we’d probably get knocked out in the alignment, giving me enough time to go and do my shopping at the Park Centre across the way.

Kind of screwed myself with that one.

After we had our lunch break, it turned out we’d won the lottery and got moved over to the quicker B Green for the Round of 16, where a couple of the Men’s knockouts were being held alongside the Women’s knockouts, so we got to play alongside some of our more distinguished Manning colleagues such as Laura Butler, Kaitlyn Tyrrell, Therese Hastings (Who were 3/4 of the defending champion team in the Women’s Draw), plus the (At the time) two-time winners Kristina Krstic, Hailey Packer, Robyn O’Brien and Helen Heal.

Manning Memorial doesn’t revolve with the world, it seems the world revolves around Manning.

Another advantage of playing on B Green was that the threat of rain was coming in, and we might still stand half a chance of reaching the head, versus having to practice hammer throw on A Green.

So, in our Round of 16 game we played another composite team skipped by Bassendean’s Wayne Neilson (A former State Triples champion), his son Wes from Joondalup, Wayne’s Basso teammate Grant Stokes (Who was incorrectly entered as Grant Stocks), and I lead against Shane Anning from Kalamunda, and we got a good laugh because myself and Shane were leading against each other with the exact same type of bowl – A Green & Yellow coloured Henselite Dreamline XG.

Might be the only two sets of that colour in Western Australia, and poor old Mick didn’t know which one was which, even though Shane had stickers.

During the early ends it appeared we’d finally met our match, as taking on the team that took out the defending champions (Bruce Eagles & co) in the sectional was much bigger than any team we’d played thus far, as evidenced early on when we were 1-7 down after 5 ends and getting outdrawn on short and middle length ends, and it was looking even worse on the 7th end, when we finally got the mat with a single and Sam played the tactical game and had me set a long end…

However, the misty rain started falling right about now, and Sam’s strategy went down the tubes, as we went 6 shots down (It was a look for 7) on the end with a bowl to come, leaving Sam no option but to try a desperate upshot on my closest bowl that was 2 metres out…

And proving once again that there’s no such thing as luck, Sam whacked the bowl in 2 metres for shot, which Wayne couldn’t clean out.

Wes later mentioned that bowl would hurt more than what came on the penultimate end, and he was completely right – We drop that 6 or 7 and it’s at least a 2-13 deficit in a knockout game… We had some good comebacks that weekend, but even that would’ve been a bridge too far.

As Sam began his great game of tactical cat and mouse with Wayne, with the weather getting worse and the green getting slower we couldn’t make any decent inroads on the Neilson team as we traded 1s and 2s (Plus a couple of killed ends) for the next 9 ends, and going down to the penultimate end we trailed 6-11.

Then, going down to the skips we were still 1 down with Shane holding on for grim death as we had a close second and third shot, and Sam’s first bowl only just missed making contact with the jack or the bowl and making 2 or 3, but once Wayne couldn’t do anything with his last bowl, Mick’s eyes lit up when he realised we now had 4 catchers out the back, and a good bowl with weight to the T would give us 4 at a minimum if it picked up the jack.

In a rare change from their Seinfeldian arguments, Sam saw it the same way, played the backhand and absolutely nailed it by picking up the jack and trailing it to the T – 1 down to 5 up, 11-11 with 1 end to play.

And that’s the power of getting past the jack, kids – Give your skip something to play with.

So from being down on the mat and getting the eight count, we now had a winner take-all final end, and the three of us managed to land a bowl in the head to give Sam something to work with, Mick put his last bowl out the back in the event of a drive, and Smithy was just edging out Grant by 6 inches for shot.

First up, Sam started his line too wide and almost finished up on Kristina’s rink, while Wayne had a run at sitting Grant’s bowl on to the holder or getting the jack, but somehow missed both by a bee’s dick and finished up a mere 2 feet through.

Sam attempted some kind of a blocker with his final bowl that landed a metre and a half away, so Wayne didn’t have to change much for what would turn out to be the last bowl of the match..

And, continuing my theme that there is no such thing as luck, he somehow managed to miss both bowl and jack again, with a near identical finishing position to his first bowl.

Yes, from 6-11 down with 2 ends to play we were through to the Quarter Finals of the State Fours!

On my first attempt, nonetheless… Heck, 24 hours earlier I’d never even made it out of the sectional of a State Event.

After enjoying a drink with our unfortunate victims, there was some confusion as to which Green we were playing the Quarter Final on, given the other 3 Men’s Quarter Finals were on A Green, but given both teams would need another 2-way roll up if we changed greens, and given we were the last game to start (First end didn’t start until close to 4pm), they decided to keep us on B Green, where we’d take on a team that could be dubbed the Batavia League All-Stars, skipped by Geraldton’s Country Week ace Shane Giudice-Nairn (He’s a funeral director of all things), Joel Leeson of Denison, another Gero local Jon Trotter, and I led against Ben Leggett, now a Premier League skip for the newly promoted Joondalup.

There seems to be a common theme in us running into these Joondalup and Bassendean players… it’s almost like they’re both decent clubs.

Before I get into the events of the game, I’ll simply say was a damn fun game to be a part of, just straight up no nonsense bowls that didn’t have anywhere near the level of arguments that two of the Quarter Finals on A Green had, starting with the game that threatened to turn into a boxing match between brothers Matty and Tom Mitchell (playing with Daniel Trewhella), which started when Tommy (allegedly) laughed at something Nathan ‘HOF’ Jones had said, which ticked off Matty to the point that he was dropping F bombs that we heard all the way from the back of B Green, which started again when he played a different bomb to trail the jack (I quote, who’s ******* laughing now, Tommy!), which caused madam umpire Sue Hogg to get the cane out and give him a warning that any further misbehaviour would bring an 8-shot penalty.

For the record, Matty’s team (Scott O’Brien, Miles Kemp and Nathan Jones) came back and won 11-10 in the ‘mostly’ Manning contest, where 6 out of the 8 players played for Manning (O’Brien/Kemp/Jones + Tom Mitchell, Blake Butler, Shane Knott), and the two skips (Mitchell & Trewhella) both won multiple Premier League titles at Manning.

Next door, the Cody Packer vs Justin Opie Quarter Final got heated when Opie supposedly clapped a bowl that got a massive wick and fell in for shot (Stirring the pot most likely), which angered Cody’s second Warren Holt (People more knowledgable than me would say it’s an achievement to piss off Holty) and after the game, which Opie’s South Perth-flavoured team won 19-10 in an upset, there was no handshake between the skips, a moment that Justin had a bit of fun about for several hours after the fact…

Can confirm, I played along and managed to get 4 handshakes with him.

So as our game got underway with the chilling southerly kicking in and the temperature dropping, several hardy souls decided to stick it out and watched us rinkside instead of enjoying the toasty clubhouse:

They would be treated to the best contest between teams of 4 since the 4×100 freestyle relay at the Sydney Olympics.

During the first 5 ends, was comfortable enough leading against Ben (Something about skips playing lead), but the difference between the teams was the back ends, as Joel and Shane were getting the better of Mick and Sam with a great mix of weighted shots and draw bowls, and we went behind 1-6 after 6 ends.

Then, Sam came to the fore on the 7th end by plonking 2 cold draws to count to give us 3 and cut the score to 4-6, and we got back within 1 shot (6-7) after 10 ends, but that work was undone when Shane created a 3 to make the score 6-10 after 11, but we weren’t done yet, as we recovered the 3 shots to make it 9-10 with 2 to play…

However, Shane and his crew would go on to hold 1 to make it 9-11, giving themselves a vital 2-shot buffer going down to the final end.

As what I thought my last bowl of the day wound up 2 metres short when I pulled my weight (Funnily enough I did the same on the Saturday), Smithy and Mick picked up the slack and moved the head to have us holding the tying 2 shots going down to the skips.

As time stood still, Shane went a metre through on his first bowl, then his second crashed into the front pack, leaving Sam with 2 shots to potentially win the game and take our miracle run to the Semi Finals…

However, both of his bowls wound up a mile short, his last one meekly pulling up into the front pack next to Shane.

11-11, EXTRA END.

After a quick toss, which we lost and got handed the mat (So Shane could have the last shot), I made the most of my mulligan and landed first the bowl of the extra end a mere foot from the jack, and somehow it stayed through the next 14 bowls, even after Jon had tried cleaning it out with a drive that hit my second bowl out of bounds, and Joel was a mere bowl behind mine to hold second shot with another one coming in three feet away when we crossed.

Before we crossed, Smithy had put a back bowl in to dissuade the drive, but ultimately Shane’s first bowl was too wide to do anything to move the head..

The only problem for us was that Sam’s two bowls, his last two of the day, were once again nothing bowls that never reached the head and did nothing to put any extra pressure on Shane.

Now, before the last bowl of the day, I told Wes (Who stayed behind to support Ben) that if Shane pulled off the shot under the circumstances, he’d more than earned it, given he was bowling into a pretty steady headwind on the wide hand.

So, with the last bowl of the entire day at Victoria Park-Carlisle, as the clock struck 6pm in the evening, Shane played narrow with weight to the T, and I could see from a mile out (As did his teammates) he was either going to promote their bowl coming in for shot, or get the holder clean…

He went on to get an inside edge off the front bowl and trail the jack clean as a whistle to win the game.

All I could do was shake the man’s hand, it was a beautiful bowl, keeping up the theme that there’s no such thing as luck…

But on our end, it was cruel ironic end to this run of a lifetime, with more comebacks than Lazarus and John Howard put together.

We wouldn’t have made the last 8 without Sammy and his magic wand for a right arm, but his last 4 bowls were like watching Greg Norman putt on a Sunday at Augusta.

So good for 17 holes, then the 18th went to hell… Even after he got a mulligan.

As for the post-game entertainment, Sam and Mick had to go straight away, but myself and Smithy hung around and had a good chat about life over a beer with Shane, Joel, Jon and Ben (Plus Wes and Ben’s sister Ruby), then once they were done, we migrated over to the bar to give Scott O’Brien a bit of company, and we had another nice long chat about ‘various points of bullshit’ with a half-pissed Lord Such, the handshaking Justin Opie, Helen Morss, an off-duty policeman named Tom, and Vic Park-Carlisle president Pat Keeffe, a chat that lasted until 9:30.

All in all, a memorable weekend, an achievement that was celebrated by myself and Smithy:

You don’t forget moments like that anytime soon, and as it turned out, it led to something just as memorable the next Saturday with my Premier League debut:

And, to finish off the story, Shane, Joel, Jon and Ben, with their Emu Export hats and long socks, went on to win the Men’s Fours title at Bassendean on Sunday, knocking off Matty Mitchell’s team 21-18 in a high quality final.

I can say we were beaten by the best.

On the last bowl.

Of an extra end.