The Open Pennants season commenced last Sunday, 19th February with both Pirates teams playing in Parkes in grade three and grade five. A terrific and overdue initiative from Bowls NSW to allow Pennants teams to be open to male and female Bowlers this year, saw Liz Byrne, Joanne Simpson and Maureen Miller bowling with the men for the first time. Unfortunately, both teams representing Parkes Bowling & Sports Club (Pirates) were soundly defeated.
The grade five Parkes Pirates Bowlers teams were outclassed and soundly beaten on two of the three rinks, by Parkes Railway Diggers Club on Sunday at the Railway Club. The only win was a win by one shot as skipper Liz Byrne led her team to a narrow win. Congratulations and well played to the Railway team – too good on the day.
The highly fancied grade three Parkes Pirates teams were beaten by Manildra on their home green, with Manildra winning by 57 shots to 48, winning two rinks to Parkes’ one rink win. Manildra were very strong across the three teams and were deserved winners away from home – congratulations to the Manildra Bowlers.
Twenty social bowlers played two games of triples and two game of pairs on Thursday, 16th February, with all games very closely fought. There was an18 shot all draw in the triples game between George Bradley, Bob Freeman and Steve Ryan against John Niddrie, Ian Simpson and Jake Brown. This was a very tight game with the margin never more than two shots between the two teams, so a draw was a fitting result.
Mike Valentine, Chris Harrison and Rob Irving had a narrow three shot win over Al Affleck, Graeme Dixon and Paul Kirwin, winning by 22 shots to 19. Team Irving were four shots behind after the 15th end, but were able to string together a couple of winning ends, to take and hold the lead, winning by three shots.
Rob Tinker and Phil Barncred had a closely fought one shot win over John Ward and Brian Townsend, winning 18 to 17. Rob and Phil were two shots down after the penultimate end but were good enough to jag three shots on the last end to win by one shot.
Ray Jones and John Corcoran defeated John Carr and Col Hayward by 18 shots to 16 in another tight game of social pairs. Corky and Ray were able to move ahead on the scorecard to lead by two shots after the 19th end, and then were composed enough to hang on and win by tow shots.
There were no organised social bowls on Saturday as the Bowls NSW Heat policy was enacted, preventing Bowlers from playing organised Bowls in the extreme heat.