Outsiders leap frog Angels
Things swung back into action after the festive break over the weekend in the Manx Petroleum sponsored Outdoor Winter Bowling League and all eight outcomes had the same winners as the last time they met.
All the fixtures were repeats from earlier in the campaign and whilst Outsiders did best positional wise by moving up one place, it was Castletown Corkers who showed the biggest improvement by notching up 56 points more this time.
First up Outsiders took on Parkers who were just behind in the standings and having beat them with a 20-point advantage in their previous clash, they will have hoped for some of the same, but Parkers pushed them all way and lost out by just two chalks.
The next clash saw a 37-point margin victory for Louie’s Angels back in November, however Bowl Rollers reduced that deficit down to only nine this time around.
Rollers then reduced another margin of defeat when they played Parkers, but couldn’t prevent the victors from improving their average to consolidate fifth spot and move within touching distance of Louie’s Angels.
Outsiders completed a successful afternoon for themselves and just missed out on their first maximum, however they did enough to swap places in the table with their opponents Louie’s Angels and now have a five point margin over them.
Results for Saturday, January 7: Parkers 112 (3), Outsiders 114 (3); Louie’s Angels 109 (4), Bowl Rollers 100 (2); Rollers 97 (2), Parkers 114 (4); Outsiders 124 (5), Louie’s Angels 89 (1).
Sunday saw Govags record their best total to date, as they dropped just four chalks in defeating Castletown Cannons; this while bottom side Castletown Corkers fared much better this time out against Unstopabowls.
The southerners struggled to a score of 65 when they met previously, whereas their opponents hit a maximum, but this time they improved that total to 99 and pegged the third placed outfit down to 111.
Next up it was the Castletown derby, and although they lost, Corkers did better in this fixture also, reducing a 26-point deficit against Cannons down to three on this occasion, and in doing so took their average above the 90-point mark.
The two earlier victors then went head-to-head and things finished pretty much the same as the last time they met, which was not good news for Govags after they lost 5-1 on games to Unstopabowls.
Results for Sunday, January 8: Govags 122 (5), Castletown Cannons 97 (1); Castletown Corkers 99 (2), Unstopabowls 111 (4); Castletown Cannons 111 (4), Castletown Corkers 108 (2); Unstopabowls 122 (5), Govags 88 (1).
The first round robin of the new year attracted an entry of 33, which was split into two sets of triples and the winners were Steve Parker, Shirley Fargher and Trish Bull; along with Ken Karran, George Peach and Carol Kaye.
Just missing out and finishing in second were Vicky Lloyd-West, Voirrey Curphey and Lil Smith; and Roy Murphy, Bernie McPhee and Dougie Allan.