Isle of Man County Crown Green Bowling Association

Onchan Bowling Club hosted the Association Non-Winners’ Cup on Sunday afternoon with the competition open to those who had never won a Men’s singles open previously, with 51 players entering to take their chance to win their first open, a healthy increase on last year’s entry of 40.

Losing quarter finalists were Bob Callow (Douglas) to Jamie Joughin (Marown) with the latter recovering from a 13-19 deficit to runout with a 21-19 win. Castletown’s Kieran Krypner lost out to the same score against Alex Yates (Noble’s).

In the other half of the draw Town captain Nathan Hamilton progressed to the next round with a 21-16 win over Mike Caley (Noble’s), whilst Walter McCarthy (Marown) made light work of Peel man Paul Quirk with a 21-9 win.

In the semi-finals Yates booked his place in the final with a 21-12 win over Joughin, keeping his opponent to scoring on just four ends, whilst McCarthy had to dig deep to hold off Hamilton 21-17, with a strong finish with the score tied at 17-17.

The final got underway with Yates getting out of the blocks the quickest leading 14-8 after six ends helped by scoring three doubles. McCarthy responded winning six of the next seven ends, working his way back into the game with three doubles of his own to take a 17-15 lead.

The Noble’s man stopped the rot with three consecutive singles to retake the lead 18-17 after 16 ends. The Marown man went one better scoring four singles over the next four ends to see the game out 21-18 to secure his first Men’s open title.

At the conclusion of play the presentation was made by Association Competition Secretary Matthew Keggen who thanked Onchan Bowling Club and its members for hosting the competition, everyone who entered, and those who came to support.