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Well friends, we have reached the halfway stage of this season with the Chinese New Year edition of Manning Jack Attack, and this week Half Price was back from his latest endeavour in cleaning out the waters off the coast of Busselton, and in the news since Week 2, I would note that after the Week 1 report, we got a comment from the all-time leading Jack Attack dunce hat himself Merv Roberts, reporting in from Vietnam in reply to a paragraph about him having the Jack Attack record for most worst-performed dances, which we counted at 32…

“GOOD TO SEE THE KING STILL GETS A MENTION, IT IS AN AMAZING RECORD FOR ME ACTUALLY TO HOLD THE DANCE RECORD BUT I WOULD LIKE TO MENTION THAT IT’S ACTUALLY A TIE BETWEEN MYSELF AND RICHARD, IM NOT A FUNNY MAN, DON’T DRINK MUCH IM NOT A CAMEL PRICE HA HA, WE DID AN AMAZING JOB HOLDING UP AND REPRESENTING THE MANNING BOWLING CLUB FOR YEARS ESPECIALLY IN THE SCORING DEPARTMENT, IT WAS LIKE THE GOOD DAYS WITH INFORMATION COMING OUT OF THE OLD SCORE BOARD AT ADELAIDE OFFICE RICHIE,I HAVE TO ADD ANY SCORE ABOVE A 3 WAS FOR THE DANCE MOVES NOT THE BEAUTY OF THE LADIES OR GENTS INVOLVED HA HA.”

I will add that while Half Price is also on 32 all-time dances, Merv’s record of 32 all-time dances occurred in one night… it’s one of those statistics that belongs alongside Bradman averaging 99.94, Wilt Chamberlain scoring 100 points, and when Craig Simmons hit a Big Bash century from 39 balls.

The Overall Night

There was some deadset chaos in Week 3, and just to demonstrate that fact, the teams in 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th all lost, and after having 4 teams with a perfect record after Week 2, there is now only one team with a perfect record (12/12 points), and that team is the twice defending champions Manning Up, while Jack Hughmans are the only other team to win all 3 games at the halfway stage of the season.

Starting off the top, and for the second week in a row the team who finished 1st Overall on the night pitched a shutout victory, and this week it was Ebowla Bad, Ibowla Good finishing only one shot off the performance of Pepperjack Attack last week, blowing out The Saxons 15/0 and 13/0 on Grass Rink 2 for a +28 shutout, a big result for EBIG after they were stuck down in the Bottom 2 with only 2 points from the opening 2 games…

By sheer coincidence, this week saw the return of Ben and Dave to help bolster Lee and Xavier, while in another coincidence Ben’s wife Helen returned to the Jack Attack fold, and the CDs have plummeted into the Earth’s core.

The runner-up position on the night went to the formerly last-placed Crawshaw Crisis Committee, who had their own version of the Airing of Grievances after last week’s 29-shot thumping by sending an angry email to Half Price, followed by the Crawshaw residents burning an effigy of Half Price out the front of Wilko’s house (Eye witnesses have said the craftsmanship was excellent), and by the time Wednesday night came around the team of Wilko, Graeme and Patsy came out breathing fire and defeated the Gutter Girls (Nadia, Leanne, Wendy and Sue) in a straight sets +17 shot romp on Grass Rink 4 (11/4 10/0), and it has been mentioned that Wilko turned in a vintage performance, not so much for his bowls, but for his sharp commentary, including this comment to Leanne Price during the game, which Mrs Half Price detailed to us after the game:

“If you had your time over again… would you marry him?”

It was a gem, but it wasn’t quite as funny as Disorderly Decca from Crawshaw firing in the all-time great comment, “Do you inhale or exhale before you bowl?”

3rd overall on the night went to Jackadder, who were very close behind with a straight sets +16 shot win against Rock N Bowl on Grass Rink 1, the kind of performance that Alex and the team can string together when they don’t mess around with the 1st Set and invariably find themselves in a tiebreak, and the only end they gave up on the night was the last end of the game to narrowly miss the shutout, while it also rocketed Jackadder into 3rd on the ladder, and it was a performance so bad from Rock N Bowl that it not only left them anchored to the bottom of the lader, but it left team captain Belinda contemplating taking up dance lessons… she’d still be well shy of Merv’s all-time record.

4th overall on the night went to B Cups 1, who were the best performed team on the Synthetic Rinks with their straight sets +15 shot win against the Top Shots on the Challenger Avenue carpark (Aka Synthetic Rink 7), and despite the overall scoreline of 21/6 they only gave up 2 ends on the night, one of which was a 5 in the 1st Set (A powerplay would’ve seen the Top Shots into the lead 10-4 after 3 ends) and the second was a solitary shot in the 2nd Set, and that costly 5 cost the B Cups 2nd spot on the night, but as the old saying goes, if my grandmother had wheels, she’d have been a bike.

Finishing off the results for Week 3:

Manning Up are the only team with a perfect 12 points through 3 games, seeing off Pepperjack Attack in an entertaining clash on Synthetic Rink 4, as the defending champion micromanagers were in trouble early on as they trailed 5-6 with an end to play, having played the customary opening end powerplay without success, but somehow Trav, Mark, Simon and Phil got those 2 shots without any input from John to win the set 7-6, then they powered home to win the 2nd Set 9-2, which gives them a healthy 3 point gap back to 3rd in the hunt for a Top 2 finish.

On the subject of coincidences, Ronni was back with Pepperjack Attack this week, and they went from 1st overall to not scoring a point… Rotten Ronni INDEED.

The Jack Hughmans pulled off one of the biggest comebacks since John Howard’s Lazarus with a triple bypass, as the B Cups 2 jumped them with a massive 17-1 win in the 1st Set on Synthetic Rink 6, which was the first set that Norm’s team had lost this season, but despite that massive hole the Hughmans turned the 2nd Set into an arm wrestle and won it 5-1 to force the tiebreak, and they completed the improbable comeback by holding 2 shots to win the game and stay in 2nd spot, despite losing the variance by 12 shots, which appears to be some kind of all-time record for a winning team, and just to make this even more painful for the B Cups… 17-1 is both the highest scoring set and biggest set margin for any team this season.

Shapes got back into the winners circle by defeating the formerly unbeaten Blue Bowls on Synthetic Rink 1, and it was a hard fought game as the 1st Set had a wild ending, beginning with the Shapes picking up 5 on the penultimate end to grab the lead 6-2, but the Blue Bowls still had a powerplay to come on the last end, and they used it to full effect by making 4 shots to draw the set, forcing a one set shootout that went decisively in favour of the Shapes, as they stifled the Blues on a double powerplay 3rd End and won the set and the game 6-1.

Sausage Bowls produced one of the strangest results of the night against Salty Bowls on Grass Rink 3, as they won the 1st Set 11-1, then held 2 on the last end to draw the 2nd Set at 5-5… and for whatever reason, both teams thought this meant they had to play a tiebreak, even though Salty Bowls hadn’t won a set and the game should’ve been finished there and then.

Sausage Bowls won that tiebreak, and even if Salty Bowls had won the tiebreak, that result would’ve gone straight to Donald Trump and the US Supreme Court to overturn the outcome… still, it would’ve been very funny to see a team win a game 0 sets to 1.

Ten Pin avoided a tiebreak for the first time this season, defeating the Trench Wenches on Synthetic Rink 3, a game that featured another drawn set as the 1st Set was drawn 3-3, but Ten Pin broke their own stereotype and won the 2nd Set 8-1, sending them up to 7th on the ladder, and when I saw Ten Pin hadn’t played a tiebreak I thought it was a typo and almost sent Peter, Deb and Jack back out to play a tiebreak, if only for the sake of their own muscle memory.

The Great Bowls of Fire took on the CDs on Synthetic Rink 5, which marked the return of one of Manning Jack Attack’s great grudge matches as Todd, Jonesy and Paul Alphabet took on Kelly, Marg, Nat and Helen, but this game was decisively one way traffic as the Great Bowls gave up only 3 shots on the night, going on to win 7-1 9-2, which brought out the school teacher in Marg as she got annoyed at her teammates not focusing on the game and chatting away… in fact, by the end of the night the CDs had more glasses of wine than they scored shots.

The all-ladies clash between the Unbelievabowls and the Bowling Stones was hard-fought game on Synthetic Rink 2, as the Stones had Tiff and Jules back after missing last week due to illness, and having the team captain appeared to make little difference to begin the game as the Unbelievabowls won a very low scoring 1st Set 4-1 as both powerplays failed, but the Stones started looking like their old selves again and won the 2nd Set 8-1 to force the tiebreak, but Frea from the Unbelievabowls did the damage to win the game, getting a bowl a foot behind that Tiff very nearly trailed away to win the game, but the luck was on the Unbelievabowls side as the jack sliced across to stay with the shot bowl.

And the lucky last result of the night was the game on Grass Rink 5 between the Bowled Guys (Bruce, Jamie and Jason) and Buffed Helmets, and many moons ago (Summer 2023 to be exact) these two teams played a superb tiebreak on the grass that was decided by a bomb from Loose Bruce, and it was a similar ending in this game, which began with the Bowled Guys hanging on to win the 1st Set 5-4 (After leading 5-0 with an end to play and dropping 4 on a powerplay), then the Buffs got going and won the 2nd Set 7-3 to set up the tiebreak, and the Bowled Guys appeared to have absolutely imploded as they had nothing within 3 metres as the green slowed down under lights, with Calvin from the Buffs holding shot a foot away from the jack with a very good lead’s bowl, but the Bowled Guys had last bowl in the hands of Bruce, who played with enough weight to give himself a chance to win the game, even as he appeared to be narrow…

And showcasing what happens when you play with enough weight, Bruce got one of Jason’s short bowls dead square and punched it in 3 metres onto the jack to win the game.

Can’t get hit up if you don’t put it hopelessly short.

Results

Grass

Rink 1: Jackadder (4pts +16) defeated Rock N Bowl, 10/0 8/2

Rink 2: Ebowla Bad, Ibowla Good (4pts +28) defeated The Saxons, 15/0 13/0

Rink 3: Sausage Bowls (3pts +10) defeated Salty Bowls (1pt -10), 11/1 5/5

Rink 4: Crawshaw CC (4pts +17) defeated Gutter Girls, 11/4 10/0

Rink 5: Bowled Guys (3pts -3) defeated Buffed Helmets (2pts +3), 5/4 3/7 1/0 in the tiebreak

Synthetic

Rink 1: Shapes (3pts +5) defeated Blue Bowls (1pt -5), 6/6 6/1

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

Rink 3: Ten Pin (3pts +7) defeated Trench Wenches (1pt -7), 3/3 8/1

Rink 4: Manning Up (4pts +8) defeated Pepperjack Attack, 7/6 9/2

Rink 5: Great Bowls of Fire (4pts +13) defeated CDs, 7/1 9/2

Rink 6: Jack Hughman (3pts -12) defeated B Cups 1 (2pts +12), 1/17 5/1 2/0 in the tiebreak

Rink 7: B Cups 1 (4pts +15) defeated Top Shots, 14/5 7/1

Ladder

Captain’s Comments

Wilko, Crawshaw: “Life is all about perspective, I know a guy who lives in a huge house, doesn’t have to work, exercises every day, and has sex three times a week… And all he does is complain about being in prison.”

Craig, Shapes: “That bowl was sexy!”

Belinda, Rock N Bowl: “I might take up dancing”

Carmo, Buffed Helmets: “We didn’t see Carry the Bowler and Carry the Dancer this week.. Ever seen Superman and Clark Kent in the same room?”

Peggy, Pepperjackattack: “We’ve got a name change again, Peppermacattack!”

John, Manning Up: “Good win, fought back in the 1st Set and wrapped it up in the 2nd”

Mark, Manning Up: “Cracking game, the overall end result didn’t do it justice, and the best part was John was surplus to requirements and didn’t play or coach!”

Bruce, Bowled Guys: “Cheers for that short bowl, Jason”