Strong favourites to defend their crown, The Colonials had many of the touring Kamala Koalas team in their ranks and were further boosted by the surprising and somewhat controversial selection/defection/recruitment to their side of Thai star and reigning club champion Sireeton “Wan” Sirimuangjan.
The ROW team, on the other hand, were somewhat depleted as two of their seasoned regulars were unable to play due to injuries, with late replacements drafted in.
Emphasising the international flavour of the event, there were nine separate countires represented by bowlers on the day, with 12 players from each team competing in triples, doubles and singles matches.
Respective captains Dean Lambert and Peter Kuschel chose the playing order and lane allocation ahead of play and with a total of 21 points available, The Colonials needed 11 points to retain the trophy whilst the ROW needed a clear victory to win back the cup they had not held for over four years.
Most agreed, it seemed like an uphill battle for the ROW was on the cards and after the first round of triples this proved to be true as The Colonials stormed into a 3-1 lead.
The only success for the ROW was the all German triple team of Frank Born and brothers Peter and Jürgen Kuschel beating Carl “The Mesh"” Mesham, Joe and Bill.
It meant the ROW needed a change in fortunes to come back into the match as the tournament moved onto the round of six doubles matches.
Unfortunately, fortune did not favour the ROW team as they slumped to a 2-8 loss, consistent with many of the pundits’ predictions prior to play.
TURNAROUND
Things did improve in the singles round of the contest, however, as the ROW performed a remarkable turnaround in the early singles with some shock results, winning three of the first four matches; Tony Fyfield scored a narrow victory over Dean Lambert 5-4, Frank Born managed to overcome club champion Wan and Melanie Fyfield hammered Greg “Hollywood” Holman 10-5, resulting in The Colonials holding an overall match score of 9-6.
The ROW’s fine form in singles play continued as Catherine Smith caused another upset by beating “Dunking” Duncan Kennedy 10-5, “Policeman” Paul Eddon thrashed Alison Ostrom Duvarney 12-2 and Per Alm drew his match with Joe.
The only slight blip for the ROW in the singles contests was a last end defeat for captain Peter Kuschel against veteran George Sasanow.
It meant the score was now 10.5 to 7.5 in favour of The Colonials ahead of the final four singles games. From seemingly coasting to victory the nerves of The Colonials were becoming increasingly frayed, something that was accentuated when Dean Simmonds beat Bill to close the deficit to just 2 points with just three matches remaining.
Unfortunately rookies Mark Delaney and Jürgen Kuschel were unable to repeat the previous heroics of their underdog colleagues and pull off shock wins as both “The Mesh” and Paul Mcllreavy eased to victories to seal the trophy for a much relieved Colonials side.
The final score was The Colonials 13.5 and the ROW 8.5, with the latter no doubt rueing their slow cooker start to the match!
Of note, and perhaps crucial to the outcome, was that three of the Colonial team, George Sasanow, Nobby Dublin and Paul Mcllreavy, recorded perfect 3-0 records on the day whilst two of the ROW team (names withheld for obvious reasons!) failed to register a point.
The next major tournament is the prestigious Kamala Open Singles Championship on Feb 7 when a bumper entry is expected.
Kamala Lawn Bowls Club is open six days a week and all equipment is provided. Group bookings availabe for private tournaments, company or social events. For further information contact the club on 094 898 7476.