Follow Manning Jack Attack and the Manning Eagles on Facebook

With the New Years’ break done, the Summer 2026 Jack Attack season ignited in a blazing inferno at Manning Memorial as we kicked off our 10 Year Anniversary Manning Jack Attack season, complete with a properly shithouse special logo:

That took me 5 minutes to create half tanked on New Year’s Day.

The great news for our anniversary season is that after the organised boredom of last season’s round robin format confined us to the Synthetic C Green, we were back into the traditional Jack Attack format as D Green was opened to kick off February (Having been out since May 2025), and it’s a brilliant turnaround, because a few years ago the club was worried about us damaging D Green, now they NEED us to play on it.

Also, after being limited to 21 teams last year, we are back up to a good field of 24 teams this year, with 4 teams making their debuts in Manning Jack Attack:

– The Cloisters 6 (Obviously from the fabled Cloister Avenue in Manning), who are apparently already headed for a name change… the Trench Wenches.

– the Gutter Girls, which includes Half Price’s wife Leanne and sister-in-law Kath, and like myself and Half Price, Leanne and Kath hopped the fence from the Manning Tennis Club to join the Jack Attack program.

– Jack Hughman (No relation to Hugh Jackman), who entered when Norm, aka Norman Gunston, emailed the club in mid January inquiring about social bowls, and next thing you know he’s a walk up start.

– And the Saxons, who are associated with the Manning Darts team… we just hope they don’t play The Normans.

We also enjoyed the return of old favourites The CD’s, after they disappeared completely in 2025 and freed themselves of Helen, and our reigning Mitchell Trophy winner Alex has come up with his seasonal name change after Jackarena proved a hit in the Spring, and this season’s team name will be…

JACKADDER.

As for the teams we lost, Rip It Up avoided the Wooden Spoon thanks to missing the last game last year, and it would appear they’ve decided to do a Harold Holt and vanish completely, while Quinny from Norfolk Enchants has been abducted by aliens, so they’ve got Norfolk Enchants of winning another title in the future.

One final problem we appear to be dealing with this season is the return of dance lessons on Wednesday nights, which haven’t been sighted since the pioneering seasons back in 2018, and for those of you who want a Manning Jack Attack history lesson from the days of AJ and Helen Heal’s stewardship, there was an unwritten rule between the teams that whoever was worst afield on the night had to go and dance…

Merv Roberts holds the all-time record with 32 dances, ‘closely’ followed by John Duffy with 12.

The Overall Night

Overall it was a fairly balanced night as 5 teams won in straight sets, there were 4 tiebreaks (There should’ve been a 5th but that will be mentioned) and 1 game with a drawn set… also noteworthy was that 5 out of 12 games had shot variances within 2 shots, with 4 of them separated by 1 shot.

Starting from the top, and the first weekly winner of the season had to be decided by the trusty countback system with 2 teams on +14 shots, and prevailing on the ends countback 8-6 was the Shapes, who had a dominant straight sets win against Sausage Bowls on Grass Rink 1, dropping only 3 shots in 10 ends in a dominant 7-1 10-2 win, with those 2 shots coming on a last end powerplay, in what was a solid start for Craig, Peter, Tristan and Pierre.

Finishing 2nd in the countback with a superb win on debut were the Jack Hughmans, who dusted off B Cups 2 with a 14-4 6-2 win on Synthetic Rink 2, and the ‘Hughies’ could easily have scored more shots in the 1st Set as they picked up a pair of 4s, then ‘only’ turned 3 shots into 6 on a powerplay, then finished off the softball ladies in the 2nd Set, and from the outside looking in Norm managed his team effectively, reminding them to have the small side of the bowl facing inwards and don’t try and aim it like it a ten pin bowl… two fundamental facts for new bowlers.

3rd overall went to the twice defending champions Manning Up on +10 shots, and John and his team had a tough assignment on paper as the Bowled Guys finished last season with a rocket strapped to their backs, but the match on Grass Rink 4 was the hammer against the nail as Manning Up won it 8-3 6-1, summed by the fact that Phil actually bowled surprisingly well, and by Phil’s standards that means he played 3 good shots instead of 2… unfortunately for the Bowled Guys they’ve started slow again, which means Bruce will have to increase his consumption of Wild Turkey cans.

The last of the money spots in 4th overall went to the Blue Bowls (+8 shots), who were in a matchup against last season’s 6th placed team Rock N Bowl, whereas Blue Bowls were all the way down in 18th, but the change in surface obviously worked for Brad and his team as they won 8-1 5-4 to leave Belinda’s team with a nasty itch, and it will do doubt delight Brad that he’s currently above Loose Bruce and Todd on the ladder.

So there’s an interesting note – 3 out of the 4 top teams were on the Grass.

Finishing off the results for Week 1:

– Pepperjack Attack were the only other straight sets winner in Week 1, defeating Ebowla Bad, Ibowla Good in straight sets by the barest of margins both times (4-3 4-3) on Synthetic Rink 4, and it was noted that EBIG were reduced to a skeleton crew of Xavier and Lee, with Ben required elsewhere and Dave confined to his couch coughing up hairballs…. not that Mick, Peg and Ronni gave a rat’s arse, as they dusted off last season’s 5th placed team in straight sets, even if there was some luck of the Irish involved.

– After splitting the sets on Grass Rink 2, the Great Bowls of Fire and Crawshaw played one of the more eventful tiebreaks you’d ever see, which kicked off when Jonesy drew the shot a foot away, followed by Crawshaw captain Wilkinson playing a screamer to land a resting toucher for 2 shots, which looked even better when Paul Alphabet was nowhere near changing the shot…

Until Todd stepped on the mat and cleaned out the shot bowl with a drive, and crucially his bowl stayed alive and finished just short of the tee:

Then with the game on the line, Todd completely ignored the incorrect advice of Jonesy and switched to a backhand drive and smashed the jack out of the bounds to get the respot, which Peter from Crawshaw couldn’t beat, and the Great Bowls finished Week 1 in the Top 6, a great start to the 10th Anniversary season for the second-longest tenured team in Manning Jack Attack.

– Last season’s runners-up the Buffed Helmets (Featuring Mazey’s family and their mate Calvin, aka Cliff Calvin) kicked off this season with a tiebreak win against Jackadder on Grass Rink 4, which began with Alex’s team starting poorly and coming from nowhere to win the last two ends to win the 1st set (0-4 to 5-4) then the Buffs pretty much had the 2nd Set won with two ends to spare as they stifled an early powerplay and won it 9-2, and they carried that momentum on to a tiebreak win, which was followed by the return of the legendary Buffed Helmets post-game debrief, which was made even funnier when we saw a dancer that looked like Helmets regular Carry (Lee Carr)… We all came to the conclusion that dancing Carry performed better on the dancefloor than Carry does on a bowling green.

– B Cups 1 had the closest non-tiebreak win of the night, drawing the 1st Set 4-4 against the Salty Bowls in an eventful 1st Set, then with the game on the line trailing 2-3 on the last end, Tres and Lisa got the B Cups the two shots required to win the game and dodge the tiebreak as well, getting them 3 points to kick off Summer 2026, although we did get this brilliant photo after the Salties got the shot with something that was described by Hully from the Buffed Helmets as “Having the weight control of a bulldozer!”:

The Bowling Stones and Ten Pin featured in another tiebreak on Synthetic Rink 7, which helped Ten Pin extend their all-time record for tiebreak appearances, although that was the least eventful part of the night for Ten Pin as Peter’s car battery went flat, and as it turns out dealing with the RAC and bowling simultaneously is a bigger royal pain in the arse than Prince Andrew, as the Stones won the 1st Set 8-4 while Deb, Jack and Coral held the fort, then when Peter’s batteries were fully charged, Ten Pin got back in the game and won the 2nd Set 6-3, but Tiff and the ladies recovered and took the tiebreak, and thankfully both teams got home without any further calls to roadside assistance.

Fun fact – In an earlier photo from the Shapes-Sausage Bowls game, you can see Peter in the background dealing with the RAC:

The game on Rink 1 featured the only game between 2 debuting teams as the Cloisters 6 and the Gutter Girls, under the watchful eye of our South African mate James ‘Fat Jack’ Jackson, although we realised Fat Jack clearly had no idea about the rules of Jack Attack and allowed both teams to use 4 players and 8 bowls per end, when the rule is a maximum of 6 bowls per end…

Eventually we corrected him, not before the Cloisters 6 won the 1st Set 5-2, then the Gutter Girls tied it up 4-2, only for Fat Jack to stuff up again and forget the teams had to play a tiebreak, as he declared the Cloisters 6 the winners with them being ahead 7-6 only total shots, and given all parties had decided Cloisters 6 were the winners, they receieved the unplayed tiebreak point.

Still, Fat Jack did give myself the photo of the night with this well-timed celebration at a toucher from 6 shots down to 1 up:

And remember, the burgers are better at Hungry Fat Jack’s.

And the lucky last game to finish in Week 1 was the game between the returning CD’s and the debuting Saxons (Andrea, Ian, Julian & Adam), a game that started at 6:30 and didn’t finish until 8:30 (Some half an hour after everyone else), an extraordinarily long game by Jack Attack standards that was either caused by the Saxons getting the staggers from the alcohol, or the CDs getting the staggers from the alcohol… either way, they drank enough to keep our bar girls employed for another week.

Anyway, the Saxons won the 1st Set 7-2, but Kelly, Nat and Marg returned with a vengeance and won the 2nd Set 12-3 (6 on a powerplay on the final end) to set up the tiebreak, and after 2 arduous hours, the CDs got the win as the Saxons succumbed to alcohol induced wrong biases and ran out of bowls, and Andrea and her family of Saxons realised the key is to get pissed just after the game, not during the roll up…

Unless you’re the Buffed Helmets.

Results

Synthetic

Rink 1: Cloisters 6 (3pts +1) defeated Gutter Girls (2pts -1), 5/2 2/4 1/0 (No tiebreak was played)

Rink 2: Jack Hughmans (4pts +14) defeated B Cups 2, 14/4 6/2

Rink 3: Top Shots (3pts -1) defeated Unbelievabowls (2pts +1), 2/5 5/3 2/0 in the tiebreak

Rink 4: Pepperjack Attack (4pts +2) defeated Ebowla Bad, Ibowla Good 4/3 4/3

Rink 5: CDs (3pts +4) defeated The Saxons (2pts -4), 2/7 12/3 1/0 in the tiebreak

Rink 6: B Cups 1 (3pts +1) defeated Salty Bowls (1pt -1), 4/4 4/3

Rink 7: Bowling Stones (3pts +1) defeated Ten Pin (2pts -1), 8/4 3/6 1/0 in the tiebreak

Grass

Rink 1: Shapes (4pts +14) defeated Sausage Bowls, 7/1 10/2

Rink 2: Great Bowls of Fire (3pts +7) defeated Crawshaw CC (2pts -7), 9/1 6/7 1/0 in the tiebreak

Rink 3: Buffed Helmets (3pts +6) defeated Jackadder (2pts -6) 4/5 9/2 1/0 in the tiebreak

Rink 4: Manning Up (4pts +10) defeated Bowled Guys, 8/3 6/1

Rink 5: Blue Bowls (4pts +8) defeated Rock N Bowl, 8/1 5/4

Ladder

Captain’s Comments

Todd, Great Bowls of Fire: “Thanks to my teammates for telling me which bowl was the shot in the tiebreak, because if I’d listened to them we wouldn’t have won”

Kath, Gutter Girls: “What lovely people to play against”

Hully, Buffed Helmets: “We saw a bloke that looked like Carry in the dance class… he performed better on the dance floor than the bowling green!”

Wilko, Crawshaw CC: “We was robbed, I love youse all, we will be practicing our driving this week”

Kelly, CD’s: “Spread the word, the CD’s are back”

And finally, great to see the Buffed Helmets back in their element as the last bowlers at the club on a Wednesday night: