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After a quick turnaround we were back for Week 3 of Manning Jack Attack, the Greatest Bowls Competition between Manning Road and the Canning River, as the old saying goes that time flies when you’re having fun, and it certainly applies to us,

There wasn’t much to report on during the week, other than our wildly viral video of the Spider Challenge from last season has now ticked over to 284,000 views, once again far out-rating the Bowls Premier League for viral popularity, so if there’s any other clubs across Australia that are running Jack Attack programs that have the misfortune of reading these reports, I’ll say this…

Forget about the Corner to Corner as a novelty challenge, spin a web and trap your prey with a SPIDER CHALLENGE.

As for conditions, it was balmier than the Barmy Army come 6:30pm, with conditions still at 28 degrees and humidity above 50%, and I did notice a few claps of thunder to the southeast, suffice to say it was a perfect for our Colombian friends in Los Jackobitas, because it would’ve felt like home.

The Overall Night

There was one late fixture change on the night, as the rinks on C Green hadn’t been moved to resolve last week’s problem of Rink 8 being uneven on the ditch side, so the decision was made to move the Rip It Up vs Salty Bowls game to Rink 5 on the Grass, which may have had a big impact on the final outcome of the night, while there were also a few teams who were reduced to skeleton crews due to missing players, which also forced this author to play only his second game of Jack Attack in the last 4 years, which also meant the photos this week were even dodgier than usual.

Results wise, it was a big tick to the handicapper this week as 6 out of the 12 games went to tiebreaks, 3 out of the Bottom 4 teams after Week 2 all won at least one set, and we also saw the rare phenomenon of a game having 2 drawn sets to force a tiebreak.

Starting at the top, the overall winners for Week 3 were Rip It Up, who won the relocated game against Salty Bowls in straight sets by 21 shots on Grass Rink 5 (13-2 12-2), which marks the second time in three games that the Manning Rippers have featured in the weekly money, while the Salties had some emotional support as Glen brought his dog Chase to have a walk around D Green for the night, although judging by the scores the dog could’ve bowled better than the young O’Briens, who are now the only team without a set victory this season.

2nd overall on the night went for the formerly pointless Baby Got Jack, who delivered a straight sets 17-shot drubbing (5-3 17-1) of the Top Shots on Synthetic Rink 4, and after being on the receiving end of some thrashings throughout the opening fortnight, winning a set would’ve been enough to keep Alex sane, but thanks to the thirst-crushing taste of Solo, the Sir Mix-A-Lot team won a low-scoring 1st Set 5-3, and Alex stuck to his tactics of deploying the powerplay to start both sets, and this time BGJ struck a gold reef by holding 5 (10), and that was pretty much the game there and then, as they romped away with a 17-1 win in the 2nd Set to rocket into the money, which went straight to his mum Allison.

3rd overall went to Rock N Bowl, who racked up another appearance in the Top 3 with a straight sets 14-shot victory against B Cups 2 on Synthetic Rink 5, with the majority of the carnage being caused in the space of two ends, as Rock N Bowl held 4 shots (doubled to 8) on their last end powerplay to win the 1st Set 12-4, then started the 2nd Set by holding 5 shots without a powerplay, going on to win the set 8-2.

Finishing off the results for Week 3, there was a change at the top of the ladder as Bowl Movements remained the only team to take the maximum 12 points through the first 3 games, winning in straight sets against Crawshaw on Grass Rink 3, as the score of 6-3 6-3 wouldn’t look out of place at the Manning Tennis Club, let alone Manning Bowling Club, and the side effect of being aced by the Bowl Movements means that Crawshaw are now stuck down in third last on the ladder.

I also noticed a quite disturbing sight during the game, as reputable Crawshaw manager Wilko appeared to be conducting some major simultaneous bowl tampering and ball tampering, thinking himself to be Cameron Bancroft:

If there was a positive, it wasn’t a wrong bias.

Despite losing top spot, Manning Up crucially kept themselves in the Top 2 as they prevailed in a clash of the heavyweights against Macatac on Grass Rink 2, which was one of the best games I didn’t get to see, as Manning Up raced out to a 9-0 lead in the 1st Set before they ultimately won it 9-7, but Macatac had the momentum by the end of the set and raced ahead 6-0 in the 2nd Set, which they would win 8-5 to set up the tiebreak, with the game being decided by Manning Up’s stalwart manager and skip John McGinn, who was somewhere between 1 to 3 shots down before he stepped on the mat and drew shot with his first bowl, which Russ (Aka DangerRuss) of Macatac couldn’t beat for shot, and ultimately Phil had to step in and tell John to bowl a pineapple with his last bowl with the game.

Manning Up still retain the best variance of any team in the race for the Top 4, while Macatac have the worst variance of any of the Top 12 teams, which has every chance of coming back to haunt them.

The Buffed Helmets ended the Bowled Guys’ perfect start to the season with a straight sets victory on Synthetic Rink 3, with the margin in both sets being a narrow 2 shots as good fortune didn’t seem to be on the side of our follicly challenged bowlers, and the ultimate difference was that the Buffs were able to hold on both of their powerplays to get the crucial gap in both sets (One of them coming with some unintended help from Bruce), while the game also featured a Buffs cameo from Calvin (In place of Carry), who is apparently friends with a tiger called Hobbes in a comic strip, but in the meantime the indoor cricketers are up to a promising 6th spot on the ladder, while the Bowled Guys finished up as the big losers of the night, with the pointless result sending them from 2nd to 9th.

Out on Grass Rink 4, Sausage Bowls and EBIG joined the history books as they drew both sets (4-4 and 6-6), which is only the fourth time in recorded history that such a scoreline has occurred in Manning Jack Attack, the other three being Missing Moo’s vs Ten Pin from Week 3 of Spring 2020,  Trevor Chappells vs Young Guns from Week 4 of Summer 2021, and Team Catalano and Merkins from Week 2 of Spring 2021.

It also went both ways when it came to drawing both sets, as EBIG salvaged 1 on their last end powerplay in the 1st Set to escape with a 4-4 draw, while Sausage Bowls had to recover from dropping 5 on the first end of the 2nd Set to draw the set 6-6 on the last end, sending the game to a tiebreak, which Trudy and the team would win to make it 3 wins from 3 games, keeping themselves in 3rd spot on the ladder.

The Unbelievabowls are the fourth and final unbeaten team through 3 games, defeating the Bowling Stones in a tiebreak on Grass Rink 1, and it was another good contest between the all-ladies teams, the Unbelievabowls started off winning a tight 1st Set 4-3, then the Stones broke away in the 2nd Set thanks to holding 2 on their powerplay, helping them win the set 6-4 to set up the tiebreak, but the Unbelievabowls loaded up the head and held 2, winning the game to stay unbeaten, and they’ve comfortably improved on their points total from last season.

I also received in my notes that Half Price was quite complimentary of the performance of Amanda from the Unbelievabowls, using old wide bowls on a tricky green… apparently it was like watching Tiger Woods at Pebble Peach in 2000.

The Great Bowls of Fire got on the board with a straight sets win against the Blue Bowls on Synthetic Rink 2, and there was a late change to the Great Bowls line up as Paul Alphabet was out due to family reasons, so Todd called in Steve Oliver, the best player in the Oliver family, far better than his other half Natalie of the CDs (Word is you should stay in retirement Nat), and it showed on the scoreboard as the Great Bowls knocked off the plumbers with a tennis score, 6-3 6-1, and they now find themselves in the Top 10, and still every chance of a Top 4 finish.

Rarebirdies broke through for their first win in Manning Jack Attack, defeating B Cups 1 in a tiebreak on Synthetic Rink 7, a hard fought result for Peter’s team after they went pointless through the first 2 games, and back on the synthetic they came good, winning the 1st Set 7-2, then the B Cups responded and won the 2nd Set 5-1 to force the decider, but it was never a contest as the golfers hit an albatross and got 3 shots to win the game.

Unfortunately, I never got a good photo of the game (As per usual), so here’s a photo of Sharyn sitting down in the ditch.

The story of the Shapes vs Jack A Hacks game is that we couldn’t find enough players to fill in for Jack A Hacks (Who had all seemingly vanished after last week), so Duncan Mac agreed to play again, and in a true act of desperation, yours truly was summoned out of exile for only his second Jack Attack game in 3 years, and as it worked out it was just the 2 of us against the Shapes with 3 bowls apiece, as Duncan played right handed and myself left handed, as if we were staging a revival of The Odd Couple:

However, it turned out that 3 bowls apiece evened up the game, as the Shapes managed to win the 1st Set 12-2 thanks to a 4 on their powerplay, as I attempted a left-handed drive so poor that I should’ve fined myself for it, but the Hacks hit back and stifled the Shapes’ 2nd Set powerplay, going on to win that set 5-3 and get last bowl for the tiebreak when they dropped 1 on the last end…

And the final story is that the Shapes had the shot thanks to Tristan, and my dodgy mollydooker drive on the last bowl came through and clipped the shot bowl but didn’t move it far enough, and the Shapes ended their winless run, as their title defence narrowly avoided joining the Titanic on the ocean floor of sunken dreams.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that after a lifetime of playing right handed in several sports, I produced 1 decent bowl out of 33 with my left hand, considering both my parents are mollydookers… however, it goes to show that 2 wrongs make a right.

Finally, the last game to mention for Week 3 was the game between Los Jackobitas and Verse 1 on Synthetic Rink 6, which finished some 10 minutes after everyone else due to frequent drinks breaks and all the drama that unfolded, with the game starting out as per normal for the Scottish South Americans, with Verse 1 winning the 1st Set 14-6 (Los Jackobitas cut it down from 14-0 on. The last end), in what was Verse 1’s first points of the season, but the 2nd Set featured a wild finish as Verse 1 led 5-4 with an end to play, and Los Jackobitas had the powerplay in hand, and Chris landed one of the best drives you’d never see in social bowls, trailing the jack into the ditch and getting the re-spot where Andreas was a foot off the jack, so they got 2 shots and sent the game to a tiebreak…

Then, with Los Jackobitas holding shot, Ronni tried engaging in some sledging with Chris, and it seemingly worked, but in a perfect display of the karma bus running someone’s arse over, Chris’ bowl wicked off a bowl that should’ve been removed due to it being out of bounds, and finished a foot from the jack, which Ronni stood no chance of beating for shot, and ultimately the last bowl hit up a Jackobitas short bowl in for 3rd shot.

Clearly keen to retain his good karma, Chris donated a lovely $50 to Plugger the Wrong Bias Pig, simply because he didn’t have a $5 note on him at the time, which will just about cover every single team off for the rest of the decade, let along the season.

Compare that to Half Price, who only put $5 in for his wrong bias against John McGinn in their Tuesday roll-up.

Tight arse.

Results

Grass 1: Unbelievabowls (3pts -1) defeated Bowling Stones (2pts +1), 4/3 4/6 1/0 in the tiebreak

Grass 2: Manning Up (3pts -1) defeated Macatac (2pts +1), 9/7 5/8 1/0 in the tiebreak

Grass 3: Bowl Movements (4pts +6) defeated Crawshaw CC, 6/3 6/3

Grass 4: Sausage Bowls (3pts 0) defeated Ebowla Bad, Ibowla Good (2pts 0), 4/4 6/6 1/0 in the tiebreak

Grass 5: Rip It Up (4pts +21) defeated Salty Bowls, 13/2 12/2

Synthetic 1: Shapes (3pts +8) defeated Jack A Hacks (2pts -8), 12/2 3/5 1/0 in the tiebreak

Synthetic 2: Great Bowls of Fire (4pts +8) defeated Blue Bowls, 6/3 6/1

Synthetic 3: Buffed Helmets (4pts +4) defeated Bowled Guys, 4/2 7/5

Synthetic 4: Baby Got Jack (4pts +17) defeated Top Shots, 5/3 16/1

Synthetic 5: Rock N Bowl (4pts +14) defeated B Cups 2, 12/4 8/2

Synthetic 6: Los Jackobitas (3pts -7) defeated Verse 1 (2pts +7), 6/14 6/5 3/0 in the tiebreak

Synthetic 7: Rarebirdies (3pts +1) defeated B Cups 1 (2pts -1), 7/2 1/5 3/0 in the tiebreak

Ladder

Captain’s Comments

Todd, Great Bowls of Fire: “The summer specialists are back in town and we’ve traded the Greek Freak to the Los Angeles Lakers for Steve Oliver”

Half Price: “Steve Oliver is the best bowler in his family… stay in retirement, Nat“

Alex, Baby Got Jack: “THE LID IS OFF“

Manning Up with Wilko: “Not only did Half Price bowl a wrong bias, he got out-donated by a Scotsman… Half Price, more like Tight Arse Price!”

Scotty, Buffed Helmets: “We keep trying to bring in as many Helmets in we can, so they can just keep leaving”

Chris, Los Jackobitas: “Ronni got me good but karma kicked in… I was telling the Mexicans about squeaky bum time during the tiebreak, and they didn’t know what it was, but we delivered like Sir Alex Ferguson in Barcelona.”

Ellen, Macatac: “Manning Up deserved the win, the best team we’ve played, very nice people”

Decca, Crawshaw CC: “I’m so poor I can’t even get my name on the front of my house, thanks to Wilko”

Duncan, Jack A Hacks: “We did a Don Chipp on the Shapes, made them earn it in what was a good game.”

Alex, Bowl Movements: “First 2 ends we were 5 up both times and Wilko got shot both times… 12 shot turnaround!”

Craig, Rip It Up: “They’re a team in development, and we are very much midfield team punching above our weight.”

Wilko, Crawshaw CC: “The trouser snake of Karma rarely arrives lubed…”