SULLY Indoor Bowls Teams had mixed results during the past week with the Club Championship Team suffering a heavy defeat on their visit to league leaders Blaenau Gwent. However, the Stadium senior team maintained their unbeaten record by beating favourites

Caerphilly (Islwyn).

On Saturday, December 6, the Stadium Team travelled to Abertillery to play Blaenau Gwent on their three rink green which means that Sully had to send three rinks to play at 10am and three rinks to play at 2pm which is far from ideal but made little difference to the result.

On a green with a much quicker pace than the Sully players are used too and a Blaenau Gwent team which included a number of internationals and players on the fringe meant that Sully were up against it from the off.

Sully morning skips of Brian Griffiths, Brian Foscolo and Fred Phillips were immediately put under pressure by the opposing rinks and went behind early with Griffiths’ rink struggling against the Blaenau Gwent rink skipped by Welsh International Steve Harris.

The rinks of Foscolo and Phillips put up brave performances and both were leading into the final quarter but were outplayed over the final few ends leaving the home team ahead by 31 shots after the morning session.

The afternoon rinks of Matthew Woodcock, Martin Clarke and Ken McLeod tried to raise their games too, not only overcome the deficit from the morning, but also attempting to gain some points from winning on their rinks. But the home side were in no mood to let Sully get into the game and all Sully rinks went down heavily suffering a 52 shot reverse. This plus the

31 shots from the morning gave Blaenau Gwent an 83 shot victory, 169 – 86, a total whitewash giving them 22 points.

Sully Senior Team played their fifth Championship game at home on Friday against their strongest opponents to date needing a win to qualify for the National play offs.

The game began with the opposition taking a nine shot lead after nine ends with Griffiths’ rink 10 – 0 behind but as the end of the tenth he had recovered to go 12 – 11 up.

The other rinks skipped by Dave Snelling, Fred Phillips and Ken McLeod were at this stage all having close games but Sully were still behind by eight shots. The game from the tenth end began to swing in Sully’s favour although Phillips and Griffiths were two and five behind respectively, the rinks of Snelling and McLeod at the 1th end were ahead by six and seven shots leaving Sully now ahead by six shots.

During the final six ends the rinks of McLeod, Griffiths and Phillips held their opponents whilst Dave Snelling’s rink of Graham Cogbill, Alun Bryan and Mel Newman drew right away winning by 15 shots allowing Sully a 12 shot victory, 84 – 72.

Sully took 10 points to Blaenau Gwent’s four leaving Sully still unbeaten and in pole position to qualify for the National play offs.

There is a three week break over the Christmas period before the next round of games, also the Stadium will be open over the Christmas holidays except for Christmas day and New Year’s Day, opening times are 10am to 3pm.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all members, also congratulations to Sully’s Martin Clarke on making the final Welsh Bowls Trial.