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And, a special feature this week…. JT and Pricey talking about Manning Jack Attack on the Bowls Australia Right Line podcast!

Before we begin, a big thanks to the following people for their work throughout the season – Richard ‘Half’ Price, the Simon to this Garfunkel, the entire bar staff for enduring copious amounts of hours cleaning pints and wine glasses, Allison Millington and her crew of kitchen volunteers, Peter Bowden for donating the bar vouchers, and to Adam Mac for his general assistance with all things bowls!

They say all good things must come to an end, and after 6 weeks of fun and frivolity, we had reached the summit of the Summer 2024 Manning Jack Attack season, bringing a close to what has been yet another ripsnorting edition of the Greatest Social Bowls Competition Between Manning Road and the Canning River, and if there’s a better Jack Attack competition in Australia, then I haven’t bothered looking at it, because they probably haven’t rated a mention on a Bowls Australia podcast.

Of course, Wednesday marked the end of another great year for the Manning Tuesday Women’s teams, and this season they made it a double, as the Premier League team defeated Mosman Park (After losing to Mossies on Monday) in a tough Grand Final to win a record-EXTENDING 10th flag in a row, and 15 of the last 17 Tuesday Premier League titles…

And to cap it off, the Division 1 White team came through a hard-fought final of their own against Thornlie (Which they were 1 bowl away from potentially losing), and gave the club its first flag in Division 1 White and a Divvy 1 double!

I would also note, our 1 White team had 2 former Manning Jack Attack players involved – Chris Ellis, formerly of the Bowled & The Beautiful, and former CDs whipping girl Helen Lamb!

The Tuesday ladies have done us all proud once again, and after that they enjoyed an afternoon full of doughnuts, easter eggs, roll over shooters with Baileys and Butterscotch Schnapps, and the raising of two pennant flags to the rafters.

Now, in case you’re unaware of the format, Jack Attack Finals Week is still the same despite the two leagues – The major prize money finals for both the Premier League and Champions League are 1st vs 2nd (The Premier League winner gets their name on the trophy), 3rd vs 4th and 5th vs 6th, with the teams in last and second-last in the Champions League playing off to get their names drawn onto the Wooden Spoon trophy by John McGinn from Manning Up:

While the winners get a roll of toilet paper, because if you finish last, then you’re crap, and if you finish second-last you’re close to crap, and what’s close to crap?

Toilet paper.

Thankfully this year we did upgrade and ‘Borrowed’ a roll of 3-ply paper from the club.

Outside of that, the teams from 7th to 12th on both ladders get paired up and drawn against each other, there’s no money for the 4 biggest wins on the night, but as with every Wednesday night, they’re still playing for sheep stations.

Now, on to the show:

The Spider Challenge, Week 6

After proving a great success in Week 4, the Spider Challenge made another comeback, and as a last minute gag, we started the countdown timer by allowing the surviving pennant winners from the day to perform a lap of honour on the green, among them Helen Lamb, Heather Pryce, Helen Heal, Robyn Jolly and Kristina Krstic:

And I would note, after 5 State Singles titles and a Commonwealth Games Gold Medal for Australia, we finally managed to get Kristina Krstic to make an appearance in Manning Jack Attack.

So once they all cleared the green, the whistle went and the jack was clobbered straight to the edge of the ditch, and we eventually worked it out that Ben from Ebowla Bad, Ibowla Good was the winner, the second shot went to Marg from the CDs, and a special third shot (With it being the last week, we had an extra drinks voucher available) went to Mick from Verse 1:

Of course, here’s the link to the organised chaos.

The Overall Night

Starting straight from the top, the Champion team for the Summer 2024 edition of Manning Jack Attack, carrying the title of Champions of Challenger Avenue, is Macatac 2!

The 1st Set of the Grand Final against the Bowl Movements did finish in a 5-5 draw, but the Maccers put the foot down and won the 2nd Set 9-1 to finally win the title, having lived in the shadow of Macatac 1 for several years (Except in Derbies), but last season they broke through and made the Final, and this year they’ve gone one better and finally got their names on the trophy, although we are out of space on the front, so they’ll have to go on the back, never to be seen at the bar.

So the runner-up spot went to the Bowl Movements, and they were cruelled by not having team manager Nikki available on the night, but it shouldn’t detract from a superb season they had after starting from near enough to obscurity, and I think they’d give the Brady Bunch a good run, because the team consists of Nikki, Lewis, Declan, Andrew, Alex, Bernice and Brandon…

And I didn’t mention John, Paul, George and Ringo.

The other important Grand Final of the night was the inaugural Champions League Grand Final between Verse 1 and Rock N Bowl, and this one was a bit more lopsided, as Rock N Bowl nailed the final end of both sets (3 turned into 6 to win the 1st Set 9-3, then held 4 on the last end to win the 2nd Set 7-3) to claim the inaugural Manning Champions League title (Bravo to Belinda, Luke and Jodie) and it capped off a wonderful night for Adam Mac – His mum wins the Manning Premier League, and his darling bride wins the Champions League!

So that now means Rock N Bowl have more Champions League titles than the Arsenal Football Club.

Moving on to the Bronze Medal games, and the 3rd vs 4th game in the Premier League featured the Bowled Guys (Bruce, Jamie and Rede) against the Buffed Helmets (, and every time these teams get together it always seems to be a humdinger, because their contest in Week 2 went to a tiebreak, and the contest to decide the Bronze Medal went to a tiebreak, as the Buffed Helmets (Scotty, Kip and Carry) forced the decider despite Scotty stepping on a piece of a beer glass that Carmo (Who didn’t even play but turned up anyway) shattered on the bench behind Rink 5…

But the result was still the same, the Bowled Guys got up in the decider to claim 3rd in the Manning Premier League, and on another note, we also might have to refer to Bowled Guys captain ‘Loose’ Bruce Stocker as Robert Harvey, because he was once again named as the Mitchell Trophy winner for this season!

Once again, the two-person committee decided that despite some worthy candidates (Ronni from Verse 1, Belinda from Rock N Bowl and Alex from the Bowl Movements), Bruce was once again the standout player as he held up the Bowled Guys into the Top 4 in the face of changing line-ups (Rede missed several weeks, Jamie was in and out), and they went on to score some quality wins in the Premier League, namely defeating Macatac 1 in straight sets, and as such becomes the first player in Manning Jack Attack history to repeat as the Mitchell Trophy winner.

The 3rd vs 4th game in the Champions League featured the 3rd-placed Jackobites against 4th-placed Ebowla Bad, Ibowla Good, and the Jackobites were already in trouble before the Spider Challenge when they only had 2 players available, but EBIG helped out and young Xavier became a Scotsman for a night and went up against his dad (Lee), Dave and Ben.

Unfortunately, the game would prove to be the worst case of a son taking on his father since the end of The Empire Strikes Back, as two big holds in both sets to EBIG saw them win a high-scoring final 8-4 10-6 to finish 3rd in the Manning Champions League, leaving the Jackobites to settle for 4th in what was a successful debut season for our resident Scotsmen (Chris, John and all the team), and a big thank you to Mark and Liz Matthews for helping get the mad keen Chris involved at Manning.

Completing the Finals results with the 5th vs 6th games, the MPL edition featured Macatac 1 (Who had jumped from 8th up to 5th in Week 5) against Shapes, who stepped on a banana peel in Week 5 and dropped from 3rd down to 6th, and evidently Craig, Peter, Tristan, Ian and Pierre were still bent out of shape, as the Maccers (Kevin, Graeme, Ellen Mac and others) jumped them 11-1 in the 1st Set, but the Shapes got their flavour back and won the 2nd Set 4-1 (It was all ends of 1 shot), but they couldn’t quite complete the comeback as the Maccers won the tiebreak to finish 5th in the MPL, their best result since winning the Spring 2022 competition.

The 5th vs 6th game in the MCL was a Manning Jack Attack first, as the CDs and Steam Rollers played each other in Week 5 (The Steam Rollers won in a tiebreak with a variance of -9), and thanks to results playing out, the teams finished in 5th and 6th and had to play again the next week on the exact same rink (Rink 1).

Out of 10,000 circumstances, that was the only possible way that could’ve occurred.

But it did.

As for the game, the Steam Rollers may have gotten away with murder with that variance from last week, but this week there was no doubt who the better team was, as the Steam Rollers sent the A-Team in and won a low-scoring game in straight sets 5-1 4-3, getting the measure on the final end to ensure the result.

Clearly the sight of their discarded drinks chick (Helen) winning a Division 1 pennant flag demoralised the CDs.

An interesting note I picked up from the Finals results in both leagues – The Bowled Guys were the only lower-ranked team to win in the MPL Finals, while all 3 lower-ranked teams won the MCL Finals.

Of course, the other important game of the night was the coveted Wooden Spoon game between the sister teams Stop Drop & Bowl and This Is How We Roll, both of whom feature on the Wooden Spoon for their imperfect performances, and proving that there was no concoction of a result to get either team on there again, the Wooden Spoon and the Close To Crap award would be decided in a tiebreak…

Which went the way of Stop Drop & Bowl, handing Sharyn & co the toilet roll for this season, which means This Is How We Roll have retained their title as the Wooden Spooners of Manning Jack Attack with a dreaded winless season!

If I could sum up Sharyn’s reaction to winning the toilet roll, it would be this:

Now, to finish off the results for this season with the other 5 games that had nothing besides pride on the line:

Outgoing champions Norfolk Enchants have copped a harsh dose of reality from the handicapper this season, but they did at least end their season in style by defeating Crawshaw CC in straight sets by 17 shots on Grass Rink 4, capped off by a 15-0 shutout in the 2nd Set, which turned out to be the biggest win of any team in Week 6, although unfortunately for Quinny and the team we never pay out the Top 4 in Week 6.

By the way, Justin from Norfolk Enchants pulled off another great achievement for Manning Jack Attack last Sunday… he won the Manning Men’s Novice Singles title against Don McLean’s distant cousin Ross McLean:

I think Ross sang Australian Pie.

Moving on to the game next door on Grass Rink 3, Salty Bowls defeated the Unbelievabowls in another of the 7 tiebreaks that occurred on Wednesday night, and that’s basically all you could say about the game, because it was as interesting as a vanilla ice cream while the Finals were going on:

On Grass Rink 4, Bowljack Horseman experienced what so many teams have gone through before by getting taken to a tiebreak against Ten Pin, but the team with the most tiebreaks in Manning Jack Attack history couldn’t quite end their season with a win, as Alex, Richard and Greg got the unofficial 7th place in the Manning Premier League:

Also, all the best to Peter from Ten Pin, one of our longest-tenured Manning Jack Attack players (All the way back to Summer 2016) who wasn’t able to play this season due to some health issues, and hopefully we’ll see him back on a Wednesday night at the end of this year.

The second last result of the season was the game between the Great Bowls of Fire and Manning Up out on the Challenger Avenue carpark (Synthetic Rink 8), and not even 2 years ago the two teams were playing off in the Manning Jack Attack Grand Final (Heck, Manning Up were still 3rd last year), but they never found form this season, and with the splitting of the leagues they found themselves down in 9th and 10th respectively in the Manning Premier League, and the first candidates to be relegated to the Champions League, although that will ultimately determined in due time by Half Price.

As for the game, Manning Up won the 1st Set 9-2, but in a story of their season, they wouldn’t score another shot for the rest of the night, as the Great Bowls won the 2nd Set with a 14-0 shutout, and went on to hold 2 shots to win the tiebreak, as Todd, Jonesy and Alphabet try and find some form before Loose Bruce and Rede earn them another shot at the Community Shield, while Manning Up are going into a rebuild (John will do some micromanaging on Phil, Brent, Simon, Mark and Trav), and they need Harley Reid more than West Coast do.

Which means the lucky last game to finish in the Summer 2024 season was the game between the Bowling Stones and Hosky’s Hopefuls on Synthetic Rink 7, which was the seventh and final tiebreak on the night after Hosky’s Hopefuls won the 1st Set 7-1, the Stones responded and won the 2nd Set 7-4, and went on to hold 4 in the tiebreak when 1 would’ve been enough.

On another note, Coach Hoskin couldn’t attend on Wednesday night because he had developed a case of gout.

When Hoski asked if he could attend, the team said ‘Gout, ya bugger!’

One final note for the record, this was the Top 4 on the night, who got absolutely nothing for their hard work:

1st: Norfolk Enchants (4pts +17)

2nd: Rock N Bowl (4pts +10)

3rd: Ebowla Bad, Ibowla Good (4pts +8)

4th: Macatac 2 (3pts +8)

Results

Grass 1 (Wooden Spoon Game): Stop Drop & Bowl (3pts +4) defeated This Is How We Roll (3pts -4), 8-2 3-5 3-0 in the tiebreak

Grass 2: Salty Bowls (3pts +2) defeated Unbelievabowls (2pts -2), 3-4 5-2 2-0 in the tiebreak

Grass 3: Norfolk Enchants (4pts +17) defeated Crawshaw CC, 4-2 15-0

Grass 4: Bowljack Horseman (3pts -3) defeated Ten (2pts +3), 3-2 1-5 2-0 in the tiebreak

Synthetic 1 (MCL 5th vs 6th): Steam Rollers (4pts +5) defeated CDs, 5-1 4-3

Synthetic 2 (MCL 3rd vs 4th): Ebowla Bad Ibowla Good (4pts +8) defeated Jackobites, 8-4 10-6

Synthetic 3 (MCL Grand Final): Rock N Bowl (4pts +10) defeated Verse 1, 9-3 7-3

Synthetic 4 (MPL Grand Final): Macatac 2 (3pts +8) defeated Bowl Movements (1pt -8), 5-5 9-1

Synthetic 5 (MPL 3rd vs 4th): Bowled Guys (3pts +2) defeated Buffed Helmets (2pts -2), 10-1 1-8 1-0 in the tiebreak

Synthetic 6 (MPL 5th vs 6th): Macatac 1 (3pts +7) defeated Shapes (2pts -7), 11-1 1-4 1-0 in the tiebreak

Synthetic 7: Bowling Stones (3pts -3) defeated Hosky’s Hopefuls (2pts +3), 1-7 7-4 1-0 in the tiebreak

Synthetic 8: Great Bowls of Fire (3pts +7) defeated Manning Up (2pts -7), 2-9 14-0 3-0 in the tiebreak

Final Ladder

Various Comments

Hully, Buffed Helmets, referring to Scotty’s Mitchell Trophy from last season: “Your photo’s on the screen inside Scotty… I nearly left straight away when I saw it.”

Scotty, Buffed Helmets: “I think I got a little piece of glass in my foot from Carmo smashing a glass…. he strikes even when he’s not playing!”

Sharyn, Stop Drop & Bowl: “We are meeting our KPIs, alright!”

Steph, Steam Rollers: “Dave wasn’t here and the opposition (The CDs) asked us if we’d brought our A-Team after last week… well, tonight was proof we did.”

And on that note….