Peel & Marown to Meet in Rayner Shield Final
Both Rayner Shield semi-finals took place last week with Douglas A hosting Peel A on Monday evening in good conditions. For Peel Gary Smith got the visitors off to a flying start beating Gordon Wynne-Smythe 21-5, whilst Tom Kelly won 21-9 against Jimmy Sansom. Villa captain Andy Cannell hit back with a 21-6 win, whilst Keith Rise dug deep to beat Dougie Allan 21-18. In the second half of the match Mervin Sayle performed well to beat Andy Kennish 21-17, Ian Moore won 21-14 against Peter Greenlees, Tommy McMeiken recording a third single figure win on the night for Peel only a Shaun Seal win against Dave ‘Barney’ Kelly would do. Seal performed well before finally losing out 16-21, which meant whilst Peel drew 4-4 on games, but their superior chalk difference of 17 (122-139) booked their placed in the final. Douglas can take consolation from a solid performance.
The following evening play went ahead despite the heavy rain throughout the day, the Marown green held up well for the visit of South Ramsey A, there was an excellent crowd up to watch this encounter. The match was incredibly tight with the 6-2 score line in favour of the Crosby men not reflecting the match or the performance put in by the visitors. First off was David Bradford who found his form to win 21-11 against John Gelling. Alan Moore performed brilliantly before agonisingly losing out 20-21 to Colin Kelly. This defeat was compounded by Dean Kipling getting over the line 21-19 against Dido Kelly. Visiting captain Glynn Hargraves had to win against Phil ‘Rambo’ Kelly for South Ramsey to stay in the match, however he found himself trailing 11-17, but dug deep to run out with a 21-19 victory to level the game at 2-2 with the visitors holding a nine chalk advantage (72-81). In the second half Marown A captain Paul Dunn romped home with a 21-9 win over Austin Hart to tip the chalks in the Crosby outfits favour, whilst Paul Kelly got a crucial hit at 18-18 with Stefan Kelly lying two to run out with a 21-18 win. This meant South Ramsey had to win the last two games on the green and this was by no means out of their reach with Steven Waters 20-19 up and putting up a good lead against Matthew Keggen and James Teare was 16-8 up on Neil Withers, however Keggen played two good bowls on the last end to seal the win for Marown. This result visibly deflated Teare, who ended up losing 20-21 to Withers with the match now decided. South Ramsey pushed Marown all the way on their own green and can take pride from their performance, losing by just eight chalks (156-148) after losing three games to 20, one game to 19 and another game to 18.
The final is to be held on at Port St Mary Bowling Club on Friday 11th September at 6:30pm. Marown will be looking to extend their record and capture the shield for the 17th time. A Peel victory would be their third in the competition, previously winning in 1983 and 1987.