Follow Manning Jack Attack and the Manning Eagles on Facebook

Before we begin, a big thanks to the following people for their work throughout the season – Richard ‘Half’ Price, the Simon to this Garfunkel, John McGinn for organising the makeshift round robin format, our Greenkeeper Dangerous Dave Nester, the entire bar staff for enduring copious amounts of hours cleaning pints and wine glasses, Alison Millington and her crew of kitchen volunteers for keeping the teams fed, Adam Macpherson for providing general assistance every night, and to everyone who played and made this another enjoyable season!

They say all good things must come to an end, and that was exactly the case down at Manning Memorial as the Spring 2025 edition of Manning Jack Attack reached Finals Week, bringing a close to what has been another competitive 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.

In case you’re unaware of the format, Finals Week is very simple – The major prize money finals for this season (Even with the round robin format) are 1st vs 2nd, 3rd vs 4th and 5th vs 6th, who all got to play the old school 2 set, 5 end Jack Attack format which will return next season, then 7th through to 18th were fixtured as 3-team round robins in ladder order, which did mean we had a few double-up fixtures, and we were going to have a 3-team round robin for the Wooden Spoon and Close To Crap award between 19th, 20th and 21st, but Rip It Up were unavailable due to an extreme player shortage, so the Unbelievabowls and Salty Bowls played off in the traditional Jack Attack format, with the caveat being they were on the worst rink possible (Rink 8), befitting of a wooden spoon game.

Of course, if you lose that wooden spoon game you join the dishonour roll on the Manning Jack Attack wooden spoon, while if you win you claim the coveted Close To Crap award for being second-last, and as the saying goes in these parts if you finish last you’re crap, and if you finish second-last you’re close to crap, and what do you usually find close to crap?

Toilet paper.

The money finals also gave us the chance to bring in a rule we had planned on bringing in prior to the loss of D Green, which is having the teams toss for the mat in the tiebreak, in-line with the majority of events in the bowls world.

It gives teams the choice – Do you keep the mat and control the length, or do you want the last bowl of the game…

Also, being the last game before Christmas, there was one other award we had lined up, and that was the best Christmas attire on the night, and it was a knockout win to Pepperjack Attack for their coordinated team Christmas uniforms, complete with socks and hats:

Ho ho ho!

Spider Challenge, Week 6

The link to the video for Week 6

Week 6 kicked off with the last of the Spider Challenges for this season, and once again there was a fair bit of action as the jack was kicked back towards the southern end, which brought the bowlers in the far right corner into play (A deadset rarity), and thanks to this, the Sausage Bowls were able to clean up as Remy got the winning shot after her bowl was clouted by a bowl that touched the jack, before the jack was promptly hit in the same direction as Remy’s bowl, and capping off the win her teammate James (Parked in that far right corner) got second shot:

It was the first piece of history on a night that featured plenty of it – It was the first time a team had managed to produce a 1-2 finish in the Spider Challenge!

The Overall Night

On a wonderful night for bowling, we start with the most important result of the season, as the WINNERS of the Grand Final on TV Rinkside, and STILL the of Champions of Challenger Avenue….

Manning Up!

Unfortunately I didn’t get a photo of the whole team as Simon and Brent weren’t available, then Mark and Trav left before we did the team photo, but the good news is I can just reuse their winning photo from Summer 2025 and act like it happened on Wednesday night:

Perfecto!

There was yet another slice of history on Wednesday night, as not only did Manning Up defend the Manning Jack Attack title, they became the first team to win both Jack Attack titles in the same year, and after the Buffed Helmets had prevailed 7-2 in their round robin matchup in Week 1, the Grand Final was largely one-way traffic as the Manning Micromanagers led 12-0 after 4 ends of the 1st Set, with a last end powerplay getting the Buffs a nice 8 to make the 1st Set score 12-8, which was akin to applying lipstick to a pig, but the Buffs did get some momentum after that result and led 4-2 with an end to play in the 2nd Set, but Manning Up’s fabled bookended powerplays came back to help them as they only needed 1 shot to seal the title, and that came when Phil landed a toucher and put the heat on, then John made it clear he wasn’t settling for a drawn set as he sat the Buffs’ closest bowl out to make 2, which left poor old Mazey in a world of crap that he couldn’t dig himself out of, and a last ditch drive was wide of the mark, and Manning Up won the set 6-4 and were the champions once more.

So the runners up were the Buffed Helmets, who were a vastly different Helmets team from recent seasons as they turned into something resembling the Brady Bunch with the amount of players they had available most weeks (Mazey + family, Scotty, Carry, Fuzzy and Calvin… and Mark from Manning Up), and the word on the street is that the Buffs will be restoring their second team for Mazey’s daughters, in which the B in ‘Buffed’ Helmets will be changed to an ‘M’… the name will be subject to clearance, but then again, we’ve got a team called Blue Bowls.

The Bronze Medal game between Jackarena and Shapes on Rink 3 lived up to the standard of being the best game of the ‘Best of the Rest’ teams, as Jackarena (Alex, Richard and Greg) bowled superbly as a team in the 1st Set and went to to win it 5-2, with Richie drawing shot from 3 down on the last end to win the set, then the Shapes crew of Peter, Tristan and Craig got going and tied the game with a 7-3 2nd Set win, which marked the first proper test of the new tiebreak rules (The second would come a few minutes later), and the Shapes were given the mat and found themselves in a world of hurt on the crossover as they were at least 3 shots down, but like a good team captain should, Craig got on the mat and drew 2 shots stone cold within a foot of the jack to win the game, as Richard went through the head with both bowls.

So the Shapes boys secured 3rd place for this season, and well done to them after they had a premiership hangover that aspirin couldn’t cure throughout February & March, but this year they spent every week in the Top 4 and only just missed the Grand Final, and in addition to the prize money they were given a top notch edible Christmas present:

That meant Jackarena claimed 4th place, their best performance under any of Alex’s previous 4000+ names (Baby Got Jack last year, Jack to the Future, Empire Strikes Jack, Bowlsheviks, etc)…

And more importantly, it should be announced that in recognition of lifting Jackarena from the mid-table wilderness to contending for a Grand Final spot, that Alex, complete with eye-catching festive attite, was awarded this season’s Mitchell Trophy as the Best & Fairest player:

We had some worthy nominees this year, among them Disorderly Decca of Crawshaw (Nominated because he was missing for 3 weeks), Irene from the Top Shots, Phil from Manning Up, but from my observations across the 6 weeks of this season it was Alex and daylight to whoever was runner-up, and it was a well-earned win for a young fella who started in Manning Jack Attack some 5 years ago, and he’s got a great love for the game of lawn bowls which is great to see.

The 5th vs 6th final between Rock N Bowl and Ebowla Bad, Ibowla Good on Rink 5 began with some chaos for Rock N Bowl, as Belinda Mac had previously organised with Half Price for Rock N Bowl to play the second and third games on the last night due to Indy Mac’s primary school graduation, but ultimately Rock N Bowl didn’t tank hard enough in Week 5 to finish outside the Top 6, which meant Belinda (and by extension Adam) was only able to appear at the post-season presentation, so thanks to a player surplus with Sausage Bowls, Ellen Mac filled the Macpherson family hole in the team and played alongside Jodie and Luke, while Xavier was missing from the EBIG team, which significantly increased the average age of the team of Lee, Ben and Dave…

Despite being old fossils, EBIG started off well and won the 1st Set 5-4, and did have a chance to win the game on the last end of the 2nd set, but proceeded to disappear as Rock N Bowl loaded up and held 4 (Having already lost the powerplay) to win the set 8-4, forcing the second tiebreak of the night, and crucially Lee won the toss and made the call to give away the mat, but in this instance taking last bowl instead of the mat paid off, as Ellen was holding shot after the leads were finished, but Lee (Bowling second) was able to make his last bowl the difference between the teams, as Luke ultimately cut under the head with both bowls, meaning Ben didn’t have to play his last bowl, as EBIG secured 5th spot, and Rock N Bowl got 6th.

The first effective example of a team giving away the mat in a Manning Jack Attack tiebreak… I think we’ll be seeing a bit more of it in February and March.

Of course, the other important game this week was the Wooden Spoon game (Originally the Wooden Spoon Challenge) between the Salty Bowls and the Unbelievabowls, and I would note the Wooden Spoon is once again up to date thanks to John McGinn adding the Top Shots of February/March 2025 to the dishonour roll:

And it was a game befitting of two of the three lowest-ranked teams this season, as they were on Rink 8 and displaying wild inconsistency, with the Salties forgetting they were even supposed to play at 6:30pm, and based on the way the 1st Set went they were still playing pool in the clubhouse, as the Unbelievabowls (Free, Katie and Helen filling in for team captain Amanda), won the 1st Set 10-1, then the Salties responded by romping in with the 2nd Set 11-1 to set up the tiebreak, in which the teams probably didn’t toss for the mat as they didn’t know the new rule, and ultimately the Salties made sure they wouldn’t be featuring on the wooden spoon again, winning the tiebreak to claim the Close To Crap toilet paper for finishing second last, which handed the Spring 2025 Wooden Spoon to the Unbelievabowls, whose struggles without their team leader Amanda were complete with the ultimate dunce hat in Manning Jack Attack.

The Unbelievabowls did fire in a protest that the spoon should’ve gone to Rip It Up, but it was dismissed as they actually had to be in attendance to win the wooden spoon, and the fact that the Unbelievabowls (And Salties) were given a $20 drinks voucher for finishing in the Bottom 2, which was worth more than the bottles of wine we gave to the participants.

Before we complete the results this week, it’s also time to mention the final tally for the Plugger the Pig Wrong Bias donations – Thanks to the donation drive during the presentations we got the final tally up to $217.55 (Rounded up to $225 when Alison made the donation), which was a great effort considering we were a few teams down on February/March, and it was actually up on the Spring 2024 total of $200 – Alison has once again made the donation to the Cancer Council, and our generosity was much appreciated.

Now, to finish off the results for Week 6, and I would note that as is tradition we don’t award prize money to the Top 4 teams on the night in the final week, but for the record these would’ve been the Top 4 teams for Week 6:

1st: Top Shots (2 wins +12 shots)

2nd: Bowled Guys (2 wins +11 shots)

3rd: B Cups 1 (2 wins +8 shots)

4th: Manning Up (2 wins +6 shots)

Starting with Rink 7, which featured a great collection of Christmas outfits, starting with the ladies of B Cups 2:

And the crew from the Top Shots:

It was the aforementioned Top Shots who recorded their third Top 4 finish in the last 4 weeks, defeating Quinny and the full strength Norfolk Enchants 8-5 in the opening game, then finishing off their year by taking out B Cups 2 with an 11-2 win, then the B Cups finished off the year by defeating Quinny’s Norfolkers 8-4, as Colin and Tim successfully dragged Norfolk to Earth after finishing 2nd last week, only to finish with Norfolk Enwins in Week 6.

Rink 1 featured the best dressed Christmas team in Pepperjack Attack, and the long-awaited Chrome Dome Derby between the Bowled Guys and the Great Bowls of Fire, which came about by sheer chance as the Bowled Guys were 7th and the Great Bowls in 8th, and the night started off with the Bowled Guys (Bruce, Jamie and Jason) defeating the Pepperjack lovers 7-2, then Todd, Jonesy and Paul Alphabet came on to defeat Pepperjack 7-4, which made the Chrome Dome Derby a game to decide the rink winner:

And the game would comfortably go to the Bowled Guys with a 9-3 victory, as they pitched a 9-0 shutout through 4 ends until giving away a consolation 3 to the Great Bowls on the last end, and the game also gave us this great photo, which Todd probably hasn’t seen until now:

The context to that photo is even funnier, because at that moment Todd was holding 2 and drew a 3rd shot, then the very next bowl Bruce came through on a forehand runner, got the shot bowl out and dragged the jack across to one of Jamie’s wing bowls and made 2 shots, completing a 5-shot turnaround.

Bruce took Todd’s dignity and multiple shots from him in the space of 30 seconds, as the Bowled Guys reeled off 6 consecutive wins to end the Spring 2025 season, and they’re building up very nicely for a promising Summer 2026 season… they just have to make sure they practice over January.

Rink 6 was taken out by B Cups 1 against Ten Pin and Blue Bowls, who had Brad and Josh back from Narrogin to help prop up our bar sales for the night, because Peter and Deb of Ten Pin handed Brad and the team a 9-1 defeat first up, but concluding yet another Jack Attack campaign, Ten Pin had the tables turned on themselves when B Cups 1 came from nowhere to win the second 6-4, picking up 2 shots on the 4th End then picking up 4 on the last end to win outright, and having pulled off a Christmas theft that the Grinch would’ve admired, B Cups 1 (With Lisa wearing a Grinch shirt) went on with the job and finished the year by defeating the Blue Bowls 7-1 to win the rink, a performance that would’ve been enough for 3rd on the night:

And Rink 2 was the last rink to finish for Spring 2025, with the Bowling Stones claiming the honours by defeating the Crawshaw comedians (Peter, Graeme, Decca and Malcolm) 6-4, coming from 0-4 down to reel off the last 3 ends, then Tiff and the ladies finished off the year by defeating the Sausage Bowls 5-4 with another comeback win, this time coming from 1-4 down with two ends to play, then in what was THE last game to finish in Spring 2025, Ellen rejoined the Sausage Bowls ensemble of Trudy, James, Remy and Andy, and the Sausages took out Crawshaw 9-1, a game that was mostly remembered for Decca taking the piss out of Peter’s dodgy laser measure with Bali batteries, which will feature in the Captain’s Comments.

And on that note, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight, and hopefully we’ll never have to use the bonus point or 3-rink round robin for the foreseeable future.

Results

Rink 1 (Won by Bowled Guys): Bowled Guys defeated Pepperjack Attack 7-2, Great Bowls of Fire defeated Pepperjack Attack 7-4, Bowled Guys defeated Great Bowls of Fire 9-3

Rink 2 (Won by Bowling Stones): Bowling Stones defeated Crawshaw CC 6-4, Bowling Stones defeated Sausage Bowls 5-4, Sausage Bowls defeated Crawshaw CC 9-2

Rink 3 (3rd vs 4th): Shapes defeated Jackarena 2-5, 7-3, 2-0 in the tiebreak

Rink 4 (Grand Final): Manning Up defeated Buffed Helmets 12-8, 6-4

Rink 5 (5th vs 6th): Ebowla Bad, Ibowla Good defeated Rock N Bowl 5-4, 4-8, 1-0 in the tiebreak

Rink 6 (won by B Cups 1): Ten Pin defeated Blue Bowls 9-1, B Cups 1 defeated Ten Pin 6-4, B Cups 1 defeated Blue Bowls 7-1

Rink 7 (won by Top Shots): Top Shots defeated Norfolk Enchants 8-5, Top Shots defeated B Cups 2 11-2, B Cups 2 defeated Norfolk Enchants 8-4

Rink 8 (Wooden Spoon Game): Salty Bowls defeated Unbelievabowls 1-10, 11-1, 1-0 in the tiebreak

Final Ladder

Captain’s Comments

John, Manning Up: “Great season, well done to the boys on reaching the goal”

Phil, Manning Up: “We asked the Bowling Stones if they wanted to stay and see what a winner looks like, but they declined”

Alex on winning the Mitchell Trophy: “I’d like to thank my mum and my aunty, Richard and Jason, and my teammates, I was pretty rubbish the first couple of weeks but they kept me motivated”

Quinny, Norfolk Enchants: “We should’ve had the finals starting halfway through the first round robin games… it was a bit weird at the end with all the empty rinks for the last game, and we could’ve had a great grand final atmosphere”

Todd, Great Bowls of Fire: “Can’t wait to get back on the grass”

Bruce, Bowled Guys: “Goodbye to the bonus point, we hardly knew ye”

Mark, Manning Up: “Well done to Alison, I thought the curry night was very well done this season”

Scotty from the Buffed Helmets, after Alex saved a bowl from getting the jack on the wrong rink: “More commitment than the English cricket team!”

Scotty on the Grand Final: “We thought that it was over before it began, 12-0 down… then it was a slow death after that.”

Decca from Crawshaw, mocking Peter’s dodgy laser measure: “Steve Austin, you’re breaking up!”