A win and a loss for bowling team

Firstly, Newport who are very difficult to beat on their own carpet, as Sully have learnt in past seasons but the Sully players are now playing with more belief this season and were confident of giving Newport a hard game. The game began with Newport taking the early initiative and lead after the first couple of ends but Sully who began well fought back and by the fifth end had levelled the game at 27 – 27.

The game remained close with Sully behind at the end of the tenth by just two shots mainly due to the rinks skipped by McLeod and Foscolo who were winning by 10 and six shots respectively. As the game continued only the Sully rinks of McLeod and Foscolo rinks remained in front whilst the other four rinks although behind were fighting hard to stay in touch with their opposition but by the 15th end Sully were behind 75 – 84 and were looking to recover this deficit over the final six ends.

The fight back began with the rinks skipped by Martin Clarke and Matthew Woodcock clawing back their shot deficits unfortunately these efforts were nullified by McLeod’s rink began to leak shots.

Fortunately Foscolo’s rink of Graham Cogbill, Gary Eastment and Mike Doyle continued to play well and extended their lead to 18 shots by the twentieth end allowing Sully to stay in touch. Matthew Woodcock’s rink of Steve McKernan, John Jones and Steve Close outplayed their opponents over the last six ends scoring 11 shots to three to force an excellent draw, while Foscolo’s rink picked up three more shots on the final end to win convincingly by 21 shots which left Sully still with a chance of obtaining a result being just four behind with Fred Phillips’s rink still on the green playing the last end. In fact Phillips had an opportunity with his last bowl to remove a Newport wood to make a five, just two metres from the head it looked as if the bowl was on line but it missed its target by a whisker leaving Newport winners by four shots 110 – 114. Newport 17 points Sully five points: - Rink Scores Sully First: -

M Woodcock 20 v 20 A Bredford

F Phillips 11 v 20 T Nicholls

B Griffiths 10 v 23 B Howard

K McLeod 22 v 20 M Lewis

B Foscolo 31 v 10 B Sansom

M Clarke 16 v 21 P Williams

Sully welcomed Ogwr to Sully on Saturday 22 expecting a win against a side struggling at the foot of the table. Sully made a number of changes for this game enabling the use of their full squad and the players who came in to the side proved themselves very capable which will make the selection for the next game interesting.

The game began with Sully taking the early advantage and were 23 shots ahead by the fifth end with four rinks up and two down. As the game progressed Sully were beginning to extend their lead and five of the six rinks were ahead with only Martin Clarkes rink surprisingly behind but by the end of the tenth Sully were well ahead by 44 shots 86 – 42.

Sully although expecting to win wanted to gain full points and all rinks except Clarkes were now well ahead and the focus was on Clarke to rally his rink to gain those vital points but

as the game went to the final ends the rinks of Doyle, Woodcock, Foscolo, McLeod and Griffiths were winning easily and Clarkes rink had recovered their deficit to go ahead on the penultimate end 18 – 17.

The last end saw Clarke’s rink two down and in danger of losing and he had one wood left to draw shot for the win unfortunately on this occasion he could only draw second shot to square his game taking one point giving Sully 21 points to Ogwr’s one, leaving the score 180 – 83 in favour of Sully. Rink scores Sully First:-

M Clarke 18 v 18 P Groom

K McLeod 33 v 12 A Sutton

B Griffiths 33 v 11 A Hunter

M Doyle 37 v 14 T Pearson

B Foscolo 35 v 14 B Tucker

M Woodcock 24 v 14 D Adams

Next Game is on Saturday, December 6 versus Blaenau Gwent away and there are two starting times 10am and 2pm please ensure names are down for selection.