Programme completed on time
Even after an extremely wet winter, the Manx Petroleum sponsored Outdoor Winter League Bowling Club league programme was completed on schedule, for the first time in the last nine seasons.
Winter after winter the Club has played fixture catch-up over the final weekends, but remarkably no such problem this time, helped by a good green and members playing in some difficult conditions.
Saturday’s action, which was held in perfect weather, involved three teams who all improved their averages, but remained where they were in the overall standings.
The session could have seen Titans move up a position, but they could only afford to drop three points, which they did in the opener against Castletown Corkers, so this left them needing a maximum score from the final outing.
Govags then joined in and began with success against their southern opponents Corkers, before taking four games off Titans and deny them that fourth spot, but they missed out on victory by the closest of margins in the all-important points tally.
Results for Saturday, March 5: Titans 123 (4) Castletown Corkers 98 (2), Castletown Corkers 109 (2) Govags 116 (4), Govags 107 (4) Titans 108 (2).
Two weekends remaining to complete this 15th season of outdoor winter bowls, will start with the club championship and with an entry over 40 it has been decided to stage the competition over this Saturday and Sunday with a 1pm start.
Looking further ahead, two more players have been added to the team merit winners list and they are Lyn Bolton (Titans) and Tracy Moore (Castletown Corkers).
A change of procedure this year regarding the Rest team to take on the Best, in that if a team winner is not available, then a representative will be found from the overall merit table, rather than the second placed player in a particular team.
So first reserve will be Ady Skinner from Mooragh Lakers, as team-mate Rob Monk will be replacing Jenny Moore who has been elevated to the Best as Ladies Merit winner.
The end of season event will also kick-off at 1pm and take place on Sunday, March 20, raffle prizes along with support for the participants, would be very much appreciated.
Two more round robins either side of last Saturday saw relatively small groups, the first having 21, played as triples and being won by Mike Skelly, Jeff Wilson and Tricia Bull.
The other had 22, which was split into two sets of doubles, with those topping the scores being Philippa Taylor and Peter Kelly, along with Alan Moore and Lil Smith.