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After the Melbourne Cup bye saw Half Price make his pilgrimage to Rottnest Island, we were back for Week 2 of Manning Jack Attack in the middle of November, with the weather much nicer than it was back in Week 1, and the biggest bit of news out Week 1 was the organising committee unanimously agreed to respond to some feedback about finishing times (The last rinks weren’t finishing the third game until 8:40), by bringing the start time forward from 6:30pm to 6:15pm, effective as of Week 2.

It was also necessary for this week, because Week 2 brought up the first of our chaotic Spider Challenges for this season, as detailed below:

Spider Challenge

The video of the Spider Challenge, Week 2

The first Spider Challenge for Spring 2025 wasn’t one of the greater looking efforts, mainly due to the jack being shot towards Rink 3 after everyone had bowled, and I did notice there was an illegal blue bowl delivered 10 seconds after the whistle in the hopes of gaming the system…. but the bowl was so bad that it sailed through and finished in the ditch.

It was deemed the worst effort at gamesmanship since Fine Cotton.

After everyone went looking for their bowls, we gave the overall win to Mick from Pepperjack Attack, who was standing directly in front of where the jack finished, with the second shot going to Mazey from the Buffed Helmets for a pair of bowls that were 21 metres away, and after seeing the replay I initially thought Mick’s bowl had sailed through and he’d claimed the win based on a bowl from the same set as his which had been delivered by someone else, given Mick is a known blaggard, but it turned out his bowl has been clouted by another and propelled back towards the jack after it had been hit, enabling it to become shot while everyone else went in the wrong direction.

Jerry from the Top Shots, who bowled next to Mick, pointed out to myself (after the fact) that if he’d simply dropped his bowl after the whistle had gone, he’d have won.

The Overall Night

With the BBQ providing a distracting smell in the air, defending champions Manning Up responded to their Week 1 no-show with an almighty thump on Rock N Bowl and Salty Bowls on Rink 1, winning 18-2 against Rock N Bowl first up, followed by 23-0 in game two against Salty Bowls to finish +39 shots up on the night, which according to my records is the biggest weekly margin in the history of Manning Jack Attack, even greater than the +34 shots Manning Up themselves got on Los Jackobitas in Week One of last season (Which was 35-1), and even greater than the Habibs getting a +30 on some poor team at the end of 2021… Manning Up might also be the first team to ever score 40 shots in 10 ends in Manning Jack Attack, such was the HISTORIC carnage on the ditch rink.

While Manning Up did that, the last game on Rink 1 between Salty Bowls and Rock N Bowl was described by Manning Up’s micromanager John, who stayed back to score the game, as “Social bowls at its best”, with two young teams going blow for blow over 5 ends as the Salties came from 2-5 down (After blowing their own powerplay) to pick up 4 and lead 6-5 with an end to play, and they had the game won until the very last bowl, when our reigning Mitchell Trophy winner Luke of Rock N Bowl came through and picked up the jack to make 2 on a last end powerplay, giving Rock N Bowl the win 9-6 and keep the young Salties winless’ run going under the cruelest of circumstances.

As John said, social bowls at its best.

2nd overall went to the Crawshaw residents, who had their block captain Wilkinson back in place of Disorderly Decca, who was busy being disorderly at work, and it showed in the results on Rink 2 as the Crisis Committee went in for game two and won a last end thriller 6-3 against Pepperjack Attack, who themselves were coming off an 11-2 win against B Cups 1 in the opening game, then Crawshaw topped it off by securing all 5 points with a 15-0 shutout of B Cups 1, finishing on +18 shots to claim 2nd spot for Week 2, propelling them into the Top 10 on the ladder after only claiming one point in Week 1.

3rd overall went to the Sausage Bowls, who won the first game on Synthetic Rink 7 by defeating Rip It Up (Who had help from former Bowl Movements regular Andrew) 7-5 thanks to holding 3 shots on the last end, then after sitting off for the second game in which Alex, Richie and the Jackarena defeated Rip It Up 8-1, Sausage Bowls dominated the winner-take-all game against Alex’s team with a 14-2 win, capped by holding a full count of 6 on the last end to send them onto the podium with +14 shots overall, although there was a small highlight for Jackarena with a moment when Alex got down and performed the worm following his bowl down, as if it were something from Happy Gilmore:

I think that was the only end Jackarena won in that game…. at least it was memorable.

The last of the money positions for Week 2 went to B Cups 2, who claimed all 5 points on Rink 3, sitting out the first game as the Top Shots defeated Ten Pin 9-1, then going on to defeat Ten Pin 6-4 in the second game, then the game against the Top Shots to decide the section was all one-way traffic as Sharyn and the team went on to win it 10-1, jumping into 6th position and giving both B Cups teams an appearance in the Top 4 through Weeks 1 and 2.

I would note that Ten Pin were shorthanded this week with Coral being unavailable to play alongside Deb and Peter, which gave Peter the chance to bowl with 3 bowls, although from what I saw he used that third bowl to take out his own shot bowl on more than one occasion… Peter’s bowls may be distinctly orange, but he was feeling mighty blue by the end of it.

Finishing off the results for Week 2, the Buffed Helmets took all 5 points on Rink 4, which featured a clash of the killer Bs (Buffs vs Bowled Guys vs Blue Bowls), first defeating the Bowled Guys 7-2, then kicking off the fabled post-game group circle early by winning a last end thriller against the Blue Bowls 5-4, with the Bowled Guys ending their winless run with a 17-0 win against the Blue Bowls, which was capped off by Josh giving Bruce and his team 4 (8) on a powerplay thanks to hitting out every Blue Bowl from the head.

Also, the Buffs once again provided the comedic value as they went from being shorthanded in Week 1 to having a supporting cast to rival Game of Thrones, as Mazey’s family got involved, and Scotty brought down debutants Calvin and Leo, who I initially mistook for Merv Hughes on account of his handlebar moustache, and the fact he just sat in the outer and drank beer all game, like Swervin’ Merv on an Australian Supporters Tour to the West Indies.

Merv also came to the club in Scottie’s first generation Ford Falcon convertible, and when they drove through Manning the kids on the street thought Santa was rolling through in his sleigh a month early.

The closest rink of the night was Rink 5 between Week 1 winners the Bowling Stones, Great Bowls of Fire and Unbelievabowls, with all 3 teams claiming 1 win each, beginning with the Stones defeating the Unbelievabowls 9-1 to make it 3 wins from 3 games, then the Unbelievabowls jumped the Great Bowls by dominating the last end to hold 6 shots and win the game 8-5, which put the Stones in an excellent position to claim the bonus point even with a defeat given their shots up, but Todd, Jonesy and Alphabet weren’t done yet, and played a superb final game to win it 8-1, wipe out the shot deficit and win the 3-way measure for the bonus, with the Great Bowls 1st on +4 shots, the Stones 2nd on +1 and the Unbelievabowls 3rd on -4, with that result keeping the Great Bowls and Bowling Stones in the Top 4.

And finally, the other humdinger was on Rink 6 between Shapes, Norfolk Enchants and Ebowla Bad, Ibowla Good, with Norfolk getting the crap end of the stick from Half Price and John organising the fixtures by having a double-up fixture against the Shapes (Who defeated them 14-6 in Week 1), but this time around at a different time and the same place Norfolk were much more competitive and forced a 6-6 draw (Coincidentally on Rink 6) on the last end, Shapes then backed up and had another close finish against EBIG, holding on to win 4-3, which meant EBIG couldn’t win the Rink due to having a loss versus Shapes with a win and a draw…

So thinking of the bigger picture, Lee, Dave, Xavier and Ben decided to take Norfolk down with them, or more accurately Quinny from Norfolk joined them out of sympathy, as on the final end (With the score at 3 apiece) young Xavier put in a position bowl that missed out on taking shot away from Norfolk, so Quinny foolishly played his last bowl and trailed the jack straight back to Xavier, also bringing in a bowl by Lee to give EBIG 2 shots, and handing the section to Shapes with 1 win, 1 draw and 1 shot up, putting them in 1st on the ladder.

Norfolk’s new recruit Chappo, aka El Chappo, had some choice words after the game for his foolhardy skip.

So in the scientific study of this week’s rink winners:

– 3 played the first and second games,

– 3 played the second and third games,

– And Sausage Bowls were the only rink winner that played the first and third games.

Results

Rink 1 (won by Manning Up): Manning Up defeated Rock N Bowl 18-2, Manning Up defeated Salty Bowls 23-0, Rock N Bowl defeated Salty Bowls 9-6

Rink 2 (won by Crawshaw CC): Pepperjack Attack defeated B Cups 1 11-2, Crawshaw defeated Pepperjack Attack 6-3, Crawshaw defeated B Cups 1 15-0

Rink 3 (won by B Cups 2): Top Shots defeated Ten Pin 9-1, B Cups 2 defeated Ten Pin 6-4, B Cups 2 defeated Top Shots 10-1

Rink 4 (won by Buffed Helmets): Buffed Helmets defeated Bowled Guys 7-2, Buffed Helmets defeated Blue Bowls 5-4, Bowled Guys defeated Blue Bowls 17-0

Rink 5 (won by Great Bowls of Fire): Bowling Stones defeated Unbelievabowls 9-1, Unbelievabowls defeated Great Bowls 8-5, Great Bowls defeated Bowling Stones 8-1

Rink 6 (won by Shapes): Shapes drew with Norfolk Enchants 6-6, Shapes defeated Ebowla Bad Ibowla Good 4-3, Ebowla Bad Ibowla Good defeated Norfolk Enchants 5-3

Rink 7 (won by Sausage Bowls): Sausage Bowls defeated Rip It Up 7-5, Jackarena defeated Rip It Up 8-1, Sausage Bowls defeated Jackarena 14-2

Ladder

Captain’s Comments

Scotty, Buffed Helmets: “BC (Brendon Crowder) came up two stairs with an esky and he was meant to go down 3.. he forgot about the third, came off the top turnbuckle smashed into my couch and damn near wrecked his ankle… more importantly, no beers were lost, but the esky and my hybrid flooring took the brunt.”

“Then, Carmo’s car was left on my front lawn for 3 days until Sunday afternoon, Carmo then rocked up, parked 2 doors up, jumped in the car and zoomed off without saying hello – He was officially voted the worst captain the Helmets have ever had.”

Chappo, Norfolk Enchants: “Xavier bowled well then he’s relied on Quinny to bowl poorly… and Quinny did!”

Wilko, Crawshaw CC: “I’ve found myself having a dilemma over the winter… Who cleans up seeing eye dog crap?”

Alex, Jackarena: “We really need to be better at bowls”

Todd, Great Bowls of Fire: “Bruce had a sook about the bonus point for winning the rink despite losing a game, I’m just glad for once it’s not me doing the sooking”

Simon, Manning Up: “The new format’s great!”