Corkers notch up first win
There is a margin of 32 points between the top two teams after the ninth weekend of fixtures in the Manx Petroleum sponsored Outdoor Winter Bowls League and it is advantage Guns for Hire ahead of Seven-Up.
Saturday saw the halfway point reached in the battles between the leading five sides, with Seven-Up completing their first four encounters with a victory to take them onto a tally of 424.
Heading this elite little group on 470 are G4H; in second are Mooragh Lakers on 436 and down in fourth it is current champs Outsiders on 413. Louie’s Angels meantime are fifth a further five points behind on 408.
The destination of the league title could possibly be decided by the scores recorded in the big games, so Outsiders will need to find their form if they want to improve on the fifth spot they currently occupy in the overall standings.
The first day of action over the weekend saw Lakers pushed all the way in their opener by Parkers who eventually missed out by just six chalks; this while Seven-Up went very close to a maximum in their win against Erin Porters.
The next two fixtures were drawn on games with Parkers victorious over Porters by fifteen points and Seven-Up going one better to triumph over Lakers by sixteen, a result that saw the two swap places in the table.
Results for Saturday, November 30: Mooragh Lakers 109 (4), Parkers 103 (2); Erin Porters 82 (2), Seven-Up 123 (4); Parkers113 (3), Erin Porters 98 (3); Seven-Up 118 (3), Mooragh Lakers 102 (3).
Sunday’s games, which were played on the first official day of winter, were a repeat of fixtures held back in October and three of the results went the same way, however Corkers gained revenge this time around against their stablemates.
Louie’s Angels notched up a maximum when they came up against Castletown Cannons previously, but their southern neighbours took 10 points off them this time out.
Bowl Rollers meanwhile shared the games with opponents Castletown Corkers, however thanks to three big wins, finished with a winning margin of 26.
Angels next did the double over Rollers and as a result of their efforts during the session, moved up into fourth spot at the expense of Outsiders.
With a margin of just three points, Cannons won the battle when they took on Corkers back in October; however, the latter took the honours on Sunday by four and in doing so recorded their first success of the campaign.
Results for Sunday, December 1: Castletown Cannons 89 (1), Louie’s Angels 116 (5); Bowl Rollers 119 (3), Castletown Corkers93 (3); Louie’s Angels 122 (5), Bowl Rollers 93 (1); Castletown Corkers 106 (4), Castletown Cannons 102 (2).
The headline on last week’s newspaper report said ‘Kelly takes over in the chase for individual merit’, when in fact it should have been ‘Gawne …’; however, that reign at the head of the list for Sue Gawne (Mooragh Lakers) didn’t last very long and after last weekend Matthew Keggen (Louie’s Angels) took over as leader ahead of Sue’s team-mate Steve Parker.
Next two are Kevin Quirk (Seven-Up) and Marg Tasker (Angels), with Sue now down into fifth position.
The midweek round robin attracted an entry of 36, which was split into two equal groups of triples.
Winning one section were Trevor Barker, Mark Kelly and Bernie McPhee, ahead of Julie Reilly, Derek Clarke and Steve Kelly.
Topping the yellow jacks were Stuart Garrett, Kevin Firth and Alec Taylor, with second place being taken by Gill Jopson, Peter Kelly and Derek Allen.
Another round robin will be held this Sunday and later in the month the J&M Lee memorial doubles will be held, entries for which are still open. All proceeds from this event on Saturday, December 21 will be donated to the RNLI, contributions, such as raffle prizes will be very much appreciated.