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In golf, people traditionally describe Round 3/Saturday at any tournament to be ‘Moving Day’, which is a term that also applies to Week 5 at Manning Jack Attack, because it’s the last chance for hopeful teams to get themselves in the Money Games (1st through to 6th) taking place in Week 6, when the Greatest Social Bowls Competition between Manning Road and the Canning River reaches its climax.

Other than that, unfortunately we did lose a couple of teams before the night began, so only 22 teams wound up playing in Week 5:

Rock N Bowl couldn’t play after suddenly realising that young Indi Mac had some kind of an awards night on Wednesday night, and without much of a chance to organise replacements we did have to give a 4-point walkover to This Is How We Roll, which they took without hesitating seeing as they only had 1 point in 4 games, and went and joined Stop Drop & Bowl in the family derby.

And, unbeknownst to any of us, Fawesome never fronted up for their game against Salty Bowls 1, and in an ideal world we could’ve had This Is How We Roll playing Salty Bowls 1 with 22 teams on hand, however the former had already accepted the walkover before we learned of Fawesome’s no-show, so Salty Bowls 1 did likewise and joined forces with the 2s against Verse 1…

It ended rather badly.

The Overall Night

Cutting to the chase before we go through the results, here is the most important information from the night… THE MONEY MATCHES for Spring 2023 next Wednesday night:

The Grand Final: Norfolk Enchants (17pts, +50) vs Macatac 2 (17pts +48)

3rd vs 4th: Manning Up (17pts +43) vs Shapes (15pts +28)

5th vs 6th: Verse 1 (13pts +24) vs The Bowling Stones (13pts +13)

And the other important match being the Wooden Spoon game: This Is How We Roll (5pts -21) vs Top Shots (0pts -43)

Yep, Norfolk Enchants are the unofficial minor premiers thanks to their crushing 16-shot win against Crawshaw CC on Synthetic Rink 4, giving them the greatest variance of any team, and it proved to be enough for 3rd overall on the night, although the evidence says they were robbed of 2nd overall on the night thanks to Pricey misreading the scorecards and calling them +14 (They won 18-2 and dropped all of 2 ends), but nevertheless they’ll be playing off for a bit more cash next week.

That defeated caused Crawshaw to plummet down to 14th, and I would also note that Norfolk Island team boss Quinny was away in Yallingup this week… After putting in their best performance of the season, his teammates have told him ‘Don’t come Monday.’

Another note out of that game is that Crawshaw’s team manager Wilko has asked me to inform everyone that this is now what passes for popular footwear among teenagers:

Western society is headed for the abyss.

As for their opponents, Macatac 2 ensured another Macatac team will make a Manning Jack Attack Grand Final, and they very nearly missed out when their game against Buffed Helmets 2 went down to a tiebreak after splitting the sets (3-7 8-5), and that point for the tiebreak victory proved the difference between 2nd and 3rd on the ladder, as the Maccers had the shots up on Manning Up…

In fact, we very nearly had another Sarah Murdoch moment, because Macatac 2 filled out their scorecard incorrectly (They wrote their score on the Buffed Helmets side) and Pricey assumed they’d lost the tiebreak, which would’ve had Manning Up in the Grand Final, but we realised the Buffs had written out the winning team on their scorecard, so it never reached the status of international controversy.

So, just missing out in the 17-point logjam was Manning Up in 3rd on a mere +43 shots, a story that I was dragged into because the Manning Up crew were ravaged by Manning Primary School graduation night, which also took out Tiff from the Bowling Stones, plus John wasn’t well, so they were down to a crew of 2, and with that knowledge we called up Dymo to help Manning Up get through what was going to be a tough game against Macatac 1, thinking that at least two of the usual micromanagers were going to front up and play with him…

Only to find out their two fill-ins, Rae and Kath, were relatively new bowlers, and it seemed the only option to give them a glimmer of hope against the 2-time champions was to bring yours truly out of self-imposed Jack Attack exile for the first time since February 2022, re-uniting me with my old Trevor Chappells teammate Dymo, but more importantly I was somehow allowed to bowl right-handed due to the presence of 2 pennant players, albeit I was rotating every 3 ends.

If I could compare this to another great moment in sports entertainment, it was like when Stone Cold Steve Austin returned to save The Rock against Triple H and Vince McMahon at Backlash 2000, and proceeded to open up a can of whoop-ass on the McMahons.

As for the game, despite Macatac 1 leading most of the game, the makeshift Manning Up did a bit of coaching and saved the best for the last end powerplays in both sets – Trailing 2-6 on a double powerplay in the 1st Set, Rae landed a toucher, I added the second, and Dymo drew 3rd shot on the last bowl to give us the 6 to win the set 8-6, meaning Macatac 1 couldn’t make the Spring Jack Attack Grand Final for the first time in their history (They needed to win in straight sets due to the shot variance gap).

Then on the final end of the 2nd Set, with Macatac 1 leading 4-2 ahead of another double powerplay, Rae plonked 2 bowls within a metre, Dymo added 2 within 2 feet, and Heath couldn’t get them out, meaning I didn’t have to give away shot with the last bowl, and Manning Up got all 4 points while their kids graduated.

Still, even in spite of winning, Manning Up dropped from 2nd to 3rd thanks to Norfolk Enchants winning by 16 shots, so John will not be giving any of us a drink for our troubles.

Moving on, Shapes claimed 4th spot on the ladder and 2nd overall on the night (On a flawed countback), thanks to their straight sets +16 shot win against the Unbelievabowls on Synthetic Rink 2, and all told it was 2 ends in particular that did the damage for Craig and his team, starting with their 6 on a 4th End powerplay in the 1st Set to ultimately win it 7-5, and then there was the final end of the night, when Shapes led 5-1 and deployed their powerplay.

With no real danger in losing the set, Craig (Could’ve even been Peter for all I know) had a run at the head and slammed the jack into the ditch to get it re-spotted onto the T and hold 5, all the bowls being at least 2-3 metres away (Including the bowl in the ditch), so all Amanda had to do was draw to within a 2 metre radius of the T to win the end…

As it turned out, she tried drawing to the ditch with predictable results, so it was 10 shots to Shapes on the last end.

That’s the second time this year the Unbelievabowls have plummeted out of the Top 4 in Week 5, because they fell from 4th to 9th in the Summer comp, and this time they’ve fallen from 4th down to 13th.

5th spot on the ladder after Week 5 went to Verse 1, who were sitting in 12th after Week 4 before they vaulted higher than Steve Hooker in Beijing by winning the night overall with a +20 shot victory against Salty Bowls 2 on Grass Rink 1, set up with a massive 18-2 victory in the 2nd Set, in which Mick, Ronni and Sally joined the ‘Full House’ Club (12 shots on a powerplay end), achieved on the 4th End of the 2nd Set, which sent the score from 3-2 to 15-2, and it was all smooth sailing from there

The lucky last finals team in 6th spot are the Bowling Stones, who were without their aforementioned team leader Tiff thanks to Manning Primary graduation (For all I know there could’ve been another reason Tiff wasn’t there), but the ladies did the work early an 11-1 win in the 1st Set against the Bowl Movements on Synthetic Rink 7, then did their best to blow it all away by dropping 4 on a last end powerplay to draw the 2nd Set 7-7, but thanks to other results falling their way, the Stones got into the Top 6 by all of 1 shot over Ebolwa Bad, Ibowla Good, with the most cursed points total in history… 13 points and +13 shots.

I would make mention of the fact that the teams played off in Week 1 of this season… Verse 1 won by 13 shots.

On another note, the other Top 4 finisher for Week 5 that I haven’t covered already was the CDs, who I mentioned last week couldn’t even win a meat raffle, let alone a game of bowls, although this week they proved they can win a game of bowls but still can’t win a meat raffle, as they defeated the Top Shots by 12 shots on Grass Rink 3, and that result shot the CDs up from 22nd to 15th and out of harm’s way, while the Top Shots have made an unwanted piece of Manning Jack Attack history, in that they haven’t scored a point through 5 games, welding them on to the Wooden Spoon Game like a barnacle to a ship’s hull.

So if you’re a bit lost, the Top 4 for Week 5 was Verse 1 on top (4pts +20), 2nd was Shapes (4pts +16), 3rd on countback was Norfolk Enchants (4pts +16), and 4th was the CDs (4pts +12).

Finishing off the results for Week 5:

Ebowla Bad, Ibowla Good only just missed out on the Top 6 thanks to losing in a tiebreak against the Great Bowls of Fire on Grass Rink 2, a game that was minus Great Bowls character Jonesy, who (allegedly) cracked the shits after seeing the fixtures due to some bad blood with a certain member of EBIG regarding stolen fishing spots, as if this country wasn’t based around blokes stealing each other’s fishing spots.

So, in revenge for their stolen fishing spot, the Great Bowls decided to steal Ebowla Bad’s shot at a money position, and after the game finished this photo from Helen Lamb, which had the caption ‘Tie Break W*nkers!’

I find the best part of that photo is young Xavier in the background having absolutely no clue what was going on.

Another hard luck story was the Bowled Guys, who finished on 12 points and +28 shots, and coulda woulda shoulda been in the Top 6 were it not for two disastrous moments in their game against Buffed Helmets 1 on the Challenger Avenue carpark; They had the 1st Set won after stifling the Buffs powerplay to lead 4-2 with their own powerplay to come on the final end… only to drop a 4 and lose it 4-6, they promptly dominated the 2nd Set 8-1…. and went on to lose the tiebreak, with that extra point costing them 5th place.

And you thought Min Woo Lee in that playoff was a heartbreaker.

Another highlight of that game was Glen bringing his dog Chase to serve as the Buffed Helmets team mascot… Still, despite defecating on the grass and barking at people, Carmo was never punished for his misbehaviour.

That said, here’s a canine:

Moving on, the Steam Rollers successfully overcame last week’s pantsing from Macatac 2 by defeating Ten Pin 10-0 in the 2nd Set after the 1st Set finished in a 7-7 draw, which does mean the Steam Rollers also finished on 13 points, albeit a long way back on shot variance to leave them in a tidy 8th place…

More importantly in the context of the ladder, that 1st Set proved to be crucial when it came to deciding the Wooden Spoon matchup for next week, because Ten Pin held 3 on a powerplay from 1-7 down to earn a draw, and that point proved to be just be enough to overtake This Is How We Roll, who did of course benefit from the walkover, and if I could describe it in the form of a photo finish, it would be this:

Which means just about the only completed I haven’t mentioned yet was the latest episode of Family Feud, featuring The Jackson 3 against Stop Drop & Bowl, as nephew Alex took on aunty Sharyn, and I should note before the game that on Tuesday when Pricey sent the weekly email out to the teams, he mentioned he was going to give a prize to the team or player that wore something ‘LOUD’…

Turns out it wasn’t that big of a field to pick from, because The Jackson 3 and Sharyn from Stop Drop & Bowl were the only people that actually read that little snippet, so they were recognised for their keen eyes, and all told it was Alex’s friend Nick that won the loudest dress prize with this ensemble:

Yes, he received a vintage Jack Attack stubby holder for his troubles.

As for the game, it just wouldn’t have been a game involving young Alex without going to a tiebreak, as Stop Drop & Bowl won the 1st Set 7-1, followed by the Jacksons winning the 2nd 9-1 to win the variance, but that was just about it for Alex and the team, as Sharyn and SD&B went on to win the tiebreak in something of an upset, although any time Stop Drop & Bowl don’t lose a night by 10 shots is an upset, which means they’ve finished well clear of the Bottom 4 this season.

On another note, this is the last time we’ll see Alex this year, because he’s off with Allison and the family on a European Vacation from Monday, just like the Griswolds many years ago, so lord knows what new team name he’ll come up with by the time we resume the next Jack Attack in February, but in the meantime the Jackson 3 will be finishing the season with some impostors… I mean ring-ins.

The Jackson 5 claimed they never can say goodbye, but we certainly can say goodbye to The Jackson 3 after next week.

As for the two teams that won by default:

Results

Grass Rink 1: Verse 1 (4pts +20) defeated Salty Bowls 2, 5-1 18-2

Grass Rink 2: Great Bowls of Fire (3pts -1) defeated Ebowla Bad Ibowla Good (2pts +1), 4-8 5-2 1-0 in the tiebreak

Grass Rink 3: CD’s (4pts +12) defeated Top Shots, 10-0 6-4

Grass Rink 4: Macatac 2 (3pts -1) defeated Buffed Helmets 2 (2pts +1), 3-7 8-5 1-0 in the tiebreak

Grass Rink 5: Stop Drop & Bowl (3pts -2) defeated The Jackson 3 (2pts +2), 7-1 1-9 1-0 in the tiebreak

Synthetic Rink 1: Salty Bowls 1 won in walkover vs Fawesome

Synthetic Rink 2: Shapes (4pts +16) defeated Unbelievabowls, 7-5 15-1

Synthetic Rink 3: Steam Rollers (3pts +10) defeated Ten Pin (1pt -10), 7-7 10-0

Synthetic Rink 4: Norfolk Enchants (4pts +16) defeated Crawshaw CC, 8-1 10-1

Synthetic Rink 5: Manning Up (4pts +6) defeated Macatac 1, 8-6 7-3

Synthetic Rink 6: Rock N Bowl were a late withdrawal due to a family event, This Is How We Roll awarded 4pts +12

Synthetic Rink 7: Bowling Stones (3pts +10) defeated Bowl Movements (1pt -10), 11-1, 6-6

Synthetic Rink 8: Buffed Helmets 1 (3pts -5) defeated Bowled Guys (2pts +5), 6-4 1-8 1-0

The Ladder:

Captains Comments

Todd, Great Bowls of Fire: “Jonesy saw the fixture and decided he didn’t want to play due to some bad blood about claiming fishing spots.”

Macatac 1: “Bloody Jason.”

Bruce, Bowled Guys: “Got the shakes at the wrong me moment and choked the 1st Set on the last end, then lost the tiebreak”

Norfolk Enchants: “Quinny is too busy sunning himself on a Yallingup beach, getting a tan for Grand Final day, and I don’t think it was a coincidence that tonight was our best win.”

Quinny in reply: “The whole caravan park knows we’re in the GF!”