Important Dates

Sunday 5 August 2018

Mate Against Mate and Honors Evenly Shared

It was Mate against Mate when the Bowls Central Coast (BCC) Open Side played two trial games against the very powerful Zone 16 (Illawarra) side at Ettalong on the weekend of the 4th and 5th August 2018.  

Ex BCC player Michael Stead after only leaving Halekulani a few months ago to join Dapto has been very quickly snapped up by the Zone 16 selectors to skip a rink for them.   We know Michael to be a great player, in fact in one of the games Michael skipped against his good mate Pat Reynolds with whom he has won many Zone 15 titles (see photo above). 

The Illawarra Side contained two other ex BCC players in Harley McDonald who played all his junior bowls representing Ettalong and Wayne Toomey an ex Mooney Mooney player

Despite the recent retirement of ex Irish International and World Cup Winner, Jeremy Henry, the Illawarra Side still included 3 International players not including high profile players like Aaron Teys, Jesse Noronha  and Harley McDonald.  Illawarra (Zone 16) is arguably the most powerful Zone side in NSW.  

It was a long time ago when the Zone 15 Open side last defeated Zone 16.  However, on the Saturday afternoon BCC won.  

Pat Reynolds' team won 25-14, Darren Morrison's team defeated Jesse Noronah's team 24-14 and Lee Trethowan's four had a 1 point win over Michael Stead's team.  James Cook who played despite being unwell had a 2 point loss 19-21 to Aaron Teys and Harley McDonald's team.  All up a 88-68 win.

On the Sunday the games were shortened to 18 ends.  James Cook succumbed to his illness leaving a vacancy at skip and the BCC selectors took the opportunity to trial some positional changes to the BCC teams.

The quality of the Zone 16 side shone trough and they achieved a 78-58 win, so over the two days the points were shared.  

Rod Rewko's team with Jeff Watson promoted to 3rd and Rod to skip had a 19-16 win.  Darren Morrison's team was defeated by Aaron Teys' team 12-22.  Pat Reynolds' team was defeated by Michael Stead's team 12-25 but the team now skipped by Zac Robertson had a draw 15-15 against Jesse Noronah's four.

Host club, Ettalong Memorial, did their usual wonderful job hosting the event.  The greens and general organisation by John Roberts and his helpers was of excellent standard. Particular thanks were extended to the BBQ team of Geoff Fenton, Alf Cooper and Dennis Fitzroy who cooked lunch on the Saturday and breakfast on the Sunday.

The aim of the weekend was to prepare for the State Open Inter-Zone Sides championship (8th to 10th September at Wagga Rules BC).  Both Zones had reason to be happy with the results and both sets of Selectors were delighted with the high quality of the bowls that were played declaring the trials most valuable..