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After vaulting over the halfway mark of the season with a pogo stick, we’ve made it to Week 4 of the Spring 2025 edition of Manning Jack Attack, and after a sudden cool change we were back to hoodie weather, with the weather dropping to 18 degrees Celsius with a southwesterly wind all night, which caught many people unprepared as they died of hypothermia…

Still, if hypothermia didn’t get them, them the impending hyperthermia when the weather rockets up to 37 on Monday (The first day of summer) definitely will.

Another key piece of news out of the night – We have worked out the format for the last week regarding the Finals and the Top 6 teams, and we will reveal it in the coming week…

The Spider Challenge, Week 4

Link for the full replay

Week 4 marked the second of the Spider Challenges to kick off the night, and it was a much more presentable Spider Challenge than the Week 2 edition, with the jack pinging around some 3 times, at one point there was a green bowl that was hit and left resting next to the jack, before another red bowl came through and trailed it away, a moment of joy that lasted all of 1 second as a lime green bowl trailed it away again….

And once the dust had settled, Phil from Manning Up picked a great spot and wound up cold drawing the shot to get the $30, with Deb from Ten Pin getting the runner-up prize, a $20 voucher certified by A.J Heal:

Now there’s a pair of moderately satisfied punters.

The Overall Night

The handicappers had their work cut out after the tight results in Week 3, but it appears they did their job pretty well as 3 out of the 4 teams in the Top 4 slipped up and came back to the pack, every team has now won at least 1 game this season, and there’s now just 3 points between 1st and 9th with one game remaining before the finals…

Starting off the top, the winners of Week 4 were the Top Shots, who backed up last week’s 3rd placing by cleaning up the Rink 1 competition with 2 wins and +19 shots, which kicked off with Ten Pin towelling off the Unbelievabowls 15-2 with another entry into the extremely rare 12 shots on a powerplay club on the last end of the game, but even Deb and Peter were made to look inferior when the Top Shots defeated them 9-1 in the second game, and the Manning Darts representative team made it another 9-legger when they defeated the Unbelievabowls 13-2 to make it 10 points from the last 2 Wednesdays, and unbelievably that game was in the balance at 3-2 to the Top Shots with an end to go… only for the Top Shots to deploy the powerplay and pick up a lazy 10 shots to vault them into top spot, which means that across their 2 games on Wednesday night, the Unbelievabowls gave up 22 out of a possible 24 shots on powerplays… I think that’s an unwanted record.

The word we got from Gordon was that in the absence of Jerry, his other half Irene was best afield, and if we had Brownlow voting, she’d have earned 6 votes.

2nd overall went to the Bowled Guys, who had been having a down year due to a lack of team continuity with Rede and Craig both being on FIFO duty, but the team of Bruce, Jamie and Jason finally looked like their old selves on Wednesday night by cleaning up Rink 6 with 2 wins and +17 shots, sitting out the first game in which Rip It Up finally got their first win of Spring 2025 by defeating Salty Bowls 6-3, picking up 4 on the last end to win the game and swap positions at the foot of the ladder with the Salties, then the Bowled Guys jumped on and cleaned up the Salties 14-1, and in the game against Rip It Up to decide the rink winner, the Bowled Guys won 6-2 in a good tough display to secure all 5 points, and after having 1 win through 3 weeks the Bowled Guys picked up 2 on Wednesday night, also jumping from 19th to 12th on the ladder.

3rd on the night went to B Cups 2, who were the lowest ranked team on Rink 5 prior to Wednesday night, but finished up vaulting over Sausage Bowls and Crawshaw with 2 wins and +15 shots, as the Rink 5 action began with Sausage Bowls holding on to defeat Crawshaw 4-3 in a low scoring thriller, then the B Cups came on and sizzled the Sausages with a 7-3 win, and the final game against Crawshaw was a wild finish, as B Cups deployed the powerplay and swarmed the jack, forcing Graeme from Crawshaw to have a run up the guts and try and respot the jack, but he missed on both attempts and the B Cups subsequently picked up 8 on the powerplay, not only sealing a 12-1 win to claim the bonus point and jump into the Top 10 on the ladder, but the extra shots vaulted them into the money positions.

So the Sausages are in a fair bit of trouble in the hunt for a Top 6 spot, while Crawshaw fell out of the Top 10, and it was also well noted that Crawshaw captain Wilkinson wagged on his team and sent Miracle Malcolm, Peter and Graeme in his place… obviously he was busy picking up guide dog droppings.

4th spot on the night went to Jackarena, who are coming home with a wet sail after picking up a win and a draw with +11 shots on Rink 2, which was the most consequential rink result of the night as it featured ladder leaders Shapes, 2nd placed Buffed Helmets and the 6th placed Jackarena…

But there was early chaos when the Buffed Helmets (Who had 6 players last week) all went AWOL, putting in a bigger no-show than Carmo’s captaincy of the Helmets, so it forced a heroic cameo from a left-handed Scratch O’Brien back with his old team, Mark from Manning Up, and one of Scratch’s work mates, and all I can say about Scratch’s mate is that if Glyn Bosisto was the Bradman of Bowls, then I think we’ve found the Zak Crawley of bowls.

So to begin the night, Jackarena went for a first end powerplay against the Buffed Helmets and absolutely nailed it by picking up 10 shots, ultimately cruising to a 14-3 win, then came the epic match against the Shapes in which Alex tried the same tactic, only to drop 4 shots, but they wouldn’t drop another end, picking up 1 shot on the 2nd End, the 3rd End, 4th End, and on the final end Tristan had drawn a toucher for the Shapes, but he was out-done by Alex, and Peter couldn’t get the accuracy on his drive to take the bowl out, and Jackarena had saved a 4-4 draw, putting them in superb position to get the bonus point.

There was still a live chance that Shapes could win the rink, given they needed to defeat the Buffs by at least 12 shots (Not impossible), but any chance of that happening was put to bed on the first end when Scratch and Mark made 3 shots, and they only dropped one end (Which just happened to be 4 on a powerplay) on the way to a 9-4 win, making the Finals race even more interesting.

A dirty night for the Shapes as they won only 2 ends out of 10 and claimed just 1 point, the Buffs ring ins kept them in 3rd, and despite winning the rink, Jackarena remained in 6th on the ladder, but their margin to the top has shrunk from 5 points to 2.

Finishing off the results for Week 4:

Manning Up have filled (Or should I say Phil’ed) the slot left on top of the ladder by Shapes by claiming all 5 points on Rink 7, defeating Norfolk Enchants 6-4 in the opening game after nailing the opening end powerplay to make 4 shots, sitting out the second game as the blaggards of Pepperjack Attack left the Norfolkers winless on the night by winning 5-3 to set up a winner take all game to decide the rink victory, but it was hardly a contest as Manning Up once again deployed the first end powerplay and made 4 shots, then held another 4 followed by another 2 to lead 10-0 after 3 ends, and the game was as good as done after that, with Pepperjack Attack adding some respectability to the score by holding their powerplay to get on the board, and Ronni got a toucher on the last bowl, but Manning Up comfortably won 11-4, making it 6 consecutive wins and 15 points from their last 3 weeks to assume top spot on the eve of Week 5…

Ebowla Bad, Ibowla Good are also right in contention as they claimed a huge 5 points by winning Rink 3, which began with Rock N Bowl needing a fill-in performance from Adam Mac with his left hand to join Belinda Mac as Luke wasn’t available, and it appeared to work as the rocking bowlers defeated the Bowling Stones 7-3 in the opening game:

Then came the game that had massive ramifications for the ladder as Rock N Bowl took on EBIG, and it was a game of wild momentum swings as EBIG led 5-0 after 2 ends, then Rock N Bowl soared back and led 7-5 with an end to play as young Xavier was seemingly thrown to the wolves and put in as a skip by Lee and Ben, but the final end had one more violent twist, as EBIG loaded up and produced some kind of a miracle to hold 4 shots and win the game 9-7, and EBIG went on to back up that miracle win by recording an 8-3 win against the Bowling Stones in the final game, vaulting Lee, Xavier and Ben up into 5th spot on the ladder, while the Bowling Stones have fallen out of the Top 10 after leading the field after Week 1.

So with that one bad end, Rock N Bowl bottled an extra 3 points (2 for the win and 1 for the rink victory) to deny themselves top spot in the process… that’s how costly it was, but they are still in 4th and 1 point off the ladder leaders.

And finally, the Great Bowls of Fire are also back in the hunt after claiming all 5 points on Rink 4 to jump into 6th on the ladder, which was just about the most entertaining rink of the night, with the Great Bowls fixtured for the opening two games after Todd successfully whinged to Half Price last week, and they would go on to defeat the Blue Bowls 6-3 after Todd drew the winning shot with the last bowl of the game (Which was a powerplay to make it 2), then the Great Bowls sealed the rink win in the second game by defeating B Cups 1 9-2.

Then came the consolation game as Blue Bowls took on B Cups 1, and I witnessed the Blue Bowls (Brad, Josh and Jack on debut) on the third and fourth ends of the game produce no fewer than 5 touchers on the jack and somehow not get a prize for it, although they did pick up a full-count of 6 on the third end, and amazingly that still almost wasn’t enough to win as Lisa from B Cups 1 slammed the jack out of bounds on the fourth end and went from 2 down to 2 up, making the score 7-5 with an end to play, and it looked as though the B Cups had pulled something from nowhere as they held 4 with Jack having last bowl on his Jack Attack debut, and the appropriately named Jack made a hero out of himself by drawing the shot to win the game 9-5.

In the words of Brad, he used to be a goat, now he’s the GOAT.

Finally, for my weekly scientific study of the rink winners;

– 2 played in the first 2 games (Jackarena, Great Bowls of Fire,)

– Manning Up were the only rink winner to feature in the first and third games

– And a season-high 4 rink winners played the second and third games (B Cups 2, Bowled Guys, EBIG and Top Shots)

What we can conclude from this is that when you play doesn’t seem to matter, it’s how well you play.

Results

Rink 1 (Won by Top Shots): Ten Pin defeated Unbelievabowls 15-2, Top Shots defeated Ten Pin 9-1, Top Shots defeated Unbelievabowls 13-2

Rink 2 (Won by Jackarena): Jackarena defeated Buffed Helmets 14-3, Jackarena drew with Shapes 4-4, Buffed Helmets defeated Shapes 9-4

Rink 3 (won by Ebowla Bad, Ibowla Good): Rock N Bowl defeated Bowling Stones 7-2, EBIG defeated Rock N Bowl 9-7, EBIG defeated Rock N Bowl 8-3

Rink 4 (won by Great Bowls of Fire): Great Bowls of Fire defeated Blue Bowls 6-3, Great Bowls of Fire defeated B Cups 1 9-2, Blue Bowls defeated B Cups 1 9-5

Rink 5 (won by B Cups 2): Sausage Bowls defeated Crawshaw CC 4-3, B Cups 2 defeated Sausage Bowls 7-3, B Cups 2 defeated Crawshaw CC 12-1

Rink 6 (won by Bowled Guys): Rip It Up defeated Salty Bowls 6-3, Bowled Guys defeated Salty Bowls 14-1, Bowled Guys defeated Rip It Up 6-2

Rink 7 (won by Manning Up): Manning Up defeated Norfolk Enchants 6-4, Pepperjack Attack defeated Norfolk Enchants 5-3, Manning Up defeated Pepperjack Attack 11-4

Ladder

Captain’s Comments

Half Price to Craig from the Shapes after a bad bowl: “That wasn’t a good Shape”

Todd, Great Bowls of Fire: “Great first game, second game I don’t think a tape was enough to decide some of those shots, we had to fight hard but good to come away with 2 wins”

Malcolm, Crawshaw CC: “On our chat we said the Crawshaw taxi was leaving at 5:45, to which Wilko asked who was playing, and I said I’ve got Graeme, Peter and Mike… he replied “Oh I might stay home then”… He’s the Ben Stokes of Crawshaw Crescent.”

Gordon, Top Shots: “Irene B.O.G.”

Alex, Jackarena: “I had to stay back this week to see if people got better margins than us… now that I know what Pricey’s like”

Phil, Manning Up: “Dave Warner, great singer.”