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Who needs the Bowls Premier League when you’ve got Manning Jack Attack.

After 8 months in hibernation, and a slightly delayed start due to the timing of the Melbourne Cup, mid-November brought us the first edition of the Spring/Summer 2024 edition of Manning Jack Attack, The Greatest Social Bowls Competition Between Manning Road And The Canning River, and there’s been at least two big changes in the Jack Attack landscape since we last spoke back in March:

– Manning Up’s chief micromanager John McGinn turned 60, received a set of bright green mustang bowls and took the plunge into Thursday pennants, following in the footsteps of Half Price and Yours Truly, and it took John only 1 game to get called up from 5th Division to 4th Division… it took me 3 damn months.

– For his work with Manning Jack Attack, and for various other pieces of work at Manning, this author was awarded the Manning Memorial Bowling Club Person of the Year, earning the title of Mr Personality 2024.

I’m only happy to say that I was following in the footsteps of Matthew and Kate Mitchell, who also received the award for their pioneering work with Manning Jack Attack back in 2016.

As for some of the team changes and new arrivals for Spring 2024:

– Bowljack Horseman are now Pepperjacks, and for legal reasons Alex has informed me they are NOT sponsored by Pepperjack… yet.

– Stop Drop & Bowl have become the B Cups, and it appears that as of Week 2, This Is How We Roll will become B Cups 2.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking B Cups 1?

I think I am, B Cups 2!

– Hosky’s Heroes have become Rip It Up, after they pulled an Adam Simpson on Mat Hoskin and gave him the arse as coach, with their new name a nod to the nearby Manning Rippers, who once had a team in Jack Attack back in the Spring 2019 season… they won the wooden spoon.

– And the new team in for this season are Holding Shots, featuring Naomi who works behind the bar, Janene from the Bentley old people’s home, whose name makes me think of I Dream of Jeanie, and Maurice, the brother of Manning’s Christine Ellis (And brother-in-law of our teammate Mark Ellis)… in fact, Christine is another Manning Jack Attack graduate, having represented the Bowled & The Beautiful many years ago.

Numbers wise, we did go down from 24 to 22 teams for Week 1, as Salty Bowls and Macatac have downsized to 1 team each, and the Jackobites lost contact with Mark Matthews after Chris changed jobs, but the good news is we have 2 new teams coming in Week 2; Sausage Bowls and Chiko Bowls, and we thank Di Macpherson for organising their entries.

There’s also one final major change for this season – WRONG BIAS FINES are back, courtesy of Plugger the Piggy Bank:

We haven’t had wrong bias fines for a good 5 years, but they’re back at last, and the plan is we’re going to have our victims make a gold coin donation (Or a bank note from an Eastern European country of their choice), and at the end of the season Allison Millington (Our kitchen queen of Manning) will donate the takings to a charity of her choice, which will probably be her beloved Carlton Football Club, because they’ve been a charity case for 30 years.

On that note, thanks to our first ‘benefactors’, Scotty from the Buffed Helmets for donating the Buffs’ wrong bias fines in advance, and Simon from Manning Up… Scotty wanted to make sure we had proof he was the first person who donated:

All up, it was a good night to be back in the swing of things on Wednesday nights.

The Overall Night

A lovely day/night for bowls as the temperature reached 30 degrees, and with the temporary change to 22 teams, once Pricey had deducted the costs for his new fishing rod from the prize pool, he worked out that we could only pay down to 3rd this week, which will most likely change once we get the 2 new entries in next week.

Starting off the top, the overall winners for opening night were Verse 1 (By name and result), who defeated Bowl Movements with a 21-shot margin on Synthetic Rink 2 (13-1 10-1), giving up only 2 shots for the night, and it was the final end that resulted in 4 shots that got Mick, Peg and Ronni into top spot on the night.

Although, there was a minor controversy during the night, as Mick decided to hand in a $20 drinks voucher (Won during the Spider Challenge last season) that expired at the end of the 2023-24 financial year, which was WRITTEN ON THE VOUCHER, in effect swindling the club out of $20.

After this indiscretion, Peggy has requested Verse 1 now be known as the Bowling Blaggards, a proper Irish word for an Irishman like her beloved Mick.

2nd place overall went to the Unbelievabowls, who had a convincing +19 shot win against Salty Bowls (12-2 14-5) on Grass Rink 1 thanks to some big holds on their powerplays, and the grass on D Green has been notoriously slow to start this season, so it isn’t that surprising to see a couple of blowouts on the grass as teams try to get used to the slow speed, and it won’t be the last big score on the grass this year.

And completing the podium, 3rd place went to the Buffed Helmets, who gave Manning Up a 17-shot hiding on the neighbouring Grass Rink 3 (4-2 15-0), despite being down to a skeleton crew of three (Scotty, Mazey and Carry), as the Manning Up crew wailed all night that they should be on centre rink on the Synthetic Green, but it should always be noted that it’s never about the Green you’re playing on, it’s about the Neanderthals playing on it, as Simon proved when he chucked in a wrong bias.

Also, it must be noted the Buffed Helmets didn’t spend their $10 prize money on the bar, as Scotty donated it to Plugger, being the charitable former Buffed Helmets captain that he is.

It must also be noted that based on the 3 results, the bottom 3 teams decided to have no pre-season whatsoever.

Finishing off the results for Week 1:

The CDs were the unlucky team to miss out on the lack of a 4th place payout in Week 1, winning by 10 shots against the former This Is How We Roll on Synthetic Rink 6, and the 2nd Set of that game was deadset violent, as the scores stood at 3-3 through 3 ends (The CDs having won the 1st Set 7-1), only for the CDs to fire back with a very rare 5 on their powerplay, making the score 13-3 with an end to play, but it turned out they needed almost all of those 10 shots, as This Is How We Roll held 3 on their own final end powerplay to make the 2nd Set score 13-9, an average of 4.4 shots per end… forget about Bazball, those 2 ends were Bazbowls.

The Bowling Stones worked up into 5th place on the ladder with a straight sets win against Rock N Bowl on Synthetic Rink 3, and it was a rare case of identical scorelines in both sets, as the Stones won 7-3 7-3, and after rarely troubling the winners’ circle in the second division last season, it would’ve felt a welcome relief for Tiff and the ladies to start the season as winners.

The last of the straight sets winners from Week 1 were Rip It Up, who defeated B Cups by 7 shots on Synthetic Rink 7, and having relieved themselves of the dead weight that is Mat Hoskin, Craig and his Rip It Up teammates were like dogs off the chain, winning the 1st Set on the final end, then going on to win the 2nd Set comfortably to grab all 4 points on offer.

Ebowla Bad, Ibowla Good were drawn against the debuting Holding Shots on Synthetic Rink 1, and naturally it was a slow start for the newcomers as EBIG won the 1st Set 9-2, but the Holding Shots (With some coaching from Christine Ellis) were much more competitive in the 2nd Set (Thanks to some coaching from Christine Ellis) and were ahead 7-5 after 4 ends thanks to a 2 on their powerplay, but EBIG got the 2 on the final end to draw the set at 7 apiece and get away with 3 points.

In addition to some coaching from Christine, Holding Shots also had help from Corinne, who is another new bowler at Manning, and her support was greatly appreciated.

The closest result of the night was the game between incumbent champions Macatac and former champions Norfolk Enchants on Grass Rink 4, a rematch of the Grand Final from Spring 2023, and it did end in the same outcome, albeit there was no tiebreak involved as the Norfolkers smuggled in a 4-4 draw in the 1st Set by picking up 3 shots in the last 2 ends, then Quinny and the gents held on for dear life to win the 2nd Set 4-3, successfully defending a 2-shot lead on the final end to finish off the game, one of the tougher games you’ll see this season with all of 15 shots across the 10 ends played.

Another competitive game was the game between Pepperjacks and the Bowled Guys on Synthetic Rink 5, and it was the reverse of how Alex and the team win most of their games, as Bruce and the Bowled Guys started the better and won the 1st Set 7-3 thanks to a 2 on their powerplay, but the Pepperjacks hit back and won the 2nd Set 8-2 to set up the tiebreak, and from there I can only assume Richard from the Pepperjacks drew a toucher and won the game, because he’s good for a couple every game.

Another tiebreak on the night involved the Crawshaw residents against Ten Pin on Synthetic Rink 4, as Manning Jack Attack’s resident ten pin bowlers get ever closer to their 10th anniversary in Jack Attack, but they looked all at sea in the 1st Set as Wilko and the Crawshaw crew pitched an 11-0 shutout in the 1st Set, but Peter, Deb and Coral fought back and won the 2nd Set 9-3, adding to their record number of tiebreak appearances, but this one didn’t end well as Crawshaw put two bowls within a metre of the jack, much to the relief of Wilko who didn’t have to play his last bowl with victory secured, learning his lesson from 4 years ago when he needlessly played the last bowl of the tiebreak (While holding shot) straight into an opposing short bowl for shot.

And the reason I mention that is because that short bowl was mine.

Finally, the last rink off was the Shapes (Pete, Tristan & Craig) vs Great Bowls of Fire (Todd, Jonesy, Bruce’s brother Craig) game on Grass Rink 3, which started late as Shapes team manager Craig wasn’t able to get to Manning until 6:45, but both teams were aware of the situation and waited accordingly, and what was already the latest finish of the night went even later as Shapes and Great Bowls split the sets (6-1 to Shapes, 7-3 to Great Bowls), but all’s well that ends well for Shapes as the extra 15 minute wait was worth it when Craig wiggled in off Jonesy’s shot bowl and drew a resting toucher in the tiebreak, and after that I was able to get a great look at the tension on Pete’s face from 200 yards away:

Ultimately, Todd wasn’t able to belt Craig off the jack and re-spot the jack on the T, and the Shapes held on to win.

Actually, speaking of Todd, here’s another cool photo from Wednesday night from the Shapes-Great Bowls game:

Ah, where has that iPhone 16 Pro been all my life.

Results

Grass 1: Unbelievabowls (4pts +19) defeated Salty Bowls, 12/2 14/5

Grass 2: Buffed Helmets (4pts +17) defeated Manning Up, 4/2 15/0

Grass 3: Shapes (3pts +1) defeated Great Bowls of Fire (2pts -1), 6/1 3/7, 1/0 in the tiebreak

Grass 4: Norfolk Enchants (3pts +1) defeated Macatac (1pt -1), 4/4 4/3

Synthetic 1: Ebowla Bad, Ibowla Good (3pts +7) defeated Holding Shots (1pt -7), 9/2 7/7

Synthetic 2: Verse 1 (2pts +21) defeated Bowl Movements, 13/1 10/1

Synthetic 3: Bowling Stones (4pts +8) defeated Rock N Bowl, 7/3 7/3

Synthetic 4: Crawshaw CC (3pts +5) defeated Ten Pin (2pts -5), 11/0 3/9 1/0 in the tiebreak

Synthetic 5: Pepperjacks (3pts +2) defeated Bowled Guys (2pts -2), 7/3 2/8, 1/0 in the tiebreak

Synthetic 6: CDs (4pts +10) defeated This Is How We Roll, 7/1 13/9

Synthetic 7: Rip It Up (4pts +7) defeated B Cups, 6/5 8/2

Ladder

Captain’s Comments

Scotty, Buffed Helmets – “I want to be noted as the first man to make a donation to the wrong bias pig”

Trav, Manning Up – “Collectively we’re just plain crap”

Todd, Great Bowls – “The Greek Freak (Paul Alphabet) is still MIA… I say we do a trade with the Milwaukee Bucks, they’re going badly with their Greek Freak, maybe we can flog Paul Alphabet to the USA and Giannis can come and play at Manning!”

Peg, Verse 1 – “We’re the Bowling Blaggards, giving expired vouchers to the bar!”