Parkes Bowls
By MARTY TIGHE
Championship matches
A thrilling Major Pairs semi-final match kept a large crowd enthralled last week when John Wright and Brian Townsend stunned the awesome combination of Andrew Reynolds and Mark Fitzalan, by storming to the final end of the match with a 1 shot lead.
Despite earlier trailing by 8 shots after the 17th end, John and Brian bowled brilliantly to hold a 1 shot advantage over their more fancied opponents, and were holding shot after Skipper Brian bowled his last bowl.
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A Match of this calibre is never over until the last bowl, and this again proved to be the case.
Marks’ last bowl of the match miraculously managed to nudge the Jack away from Brian's near toucher bowl, toward Andrews’ back bowls, to incredibly win the final end by scoring 2 shots, and won the match by 21 shots to 20.
John and Brian could not have bowled better and were only deprived of victory by a bowl from Mark Fitzalan that was pure class.
Pennants
The 2025 Open Pennants season commenced on the weekend with 2 of the 3 Pirates’ teams enjoying wins.
The Grade 2 team defeated West Dubbo 72 shots to 56, recording a 9-1 result.
The Grade 5 team were narrowly defeated by a very competitive Molong team by 59 shots to 61, overall result being 1-9.
The Grade 7 team had a resounding win over Peak Hill by 72 shots to 59, overall result being 9-1.
The Pirates Mateys of the week awards for each grade were awarded to Mark Fitzalan, Matt Parker and Scott Allen.
Social bowls
Twenty-six social bowlers relished the opportunity last Thursday to bowl on the newly refurbished TV green – well done greenkeepers and volunteers, the playing surface is a great credit to each of you.
There was one triples game and 5 games of pairs played, with the most notable and interesting result being a pairs game in which the evergreen John Carr and Geoff Freeman demolished Dave Parker and Colin Mudie by 38 shots to 10.
Team Mudie only reached double figures on the last end! John and Geoff scored 6 shots on the 3rd end of the game and topped that effort by scoring 5 shots on a further 3 ends, to completely dominate the game against Dave and Colin.
The closest scoring game of the day was the pairs game of Rob Hill and John Corcoran defeating Mark Glasheen and Colin Hayward by 21 shots to 18.
Mark and Colin started well by scoring 5 shots on the 2nd end, for a lead 6 shots to zip after 2 ends, but they were then out-bowled by consistent play from Rob and John, who won the next 6 consecutive ends.
Having established a margin of 3 shots, Rob and John never let go of the scoring advantage, and bowled well to close out the game by that margin of 3 shots, despite a late scoring flurry from team Hayward.
The Lucky Rink jackpot sits at $150 for next Thursdays’ social bowls.
A reminder to visitors or new bowlers that social bowls are played each Thursday and Saturday at 1pm, names in by 12.30pm and, as always, the ‘Friendly Club’ welcomes all visitors to play social bowls.
Ladies bowls are played on Tuesday.
Two raffles are held each Friday, as well as the lucky 100 number wheel and pick-a-box, together with the members draw.
The members draw jackpot is now $1800.
All the action starts from 7pm.
