New England Bowls By RICHIE CLUTTERBUCK
THE district triples matches were played at Glen Innes last weekend and on an excellent surface two City teams made it through to the final. On their way to the decider Peter Doyle, Graeme Porter and Dave McCann defeated Claude McFayden’s City team 29-16, Greg Harrison’s City team 26-23 and John McIlwain’s Guyra team 31-21 while Todd Fuller, Steve Fuller and Brody Dexter won 27-26 against John Andrew’s Walcha team, 22-20 against Brian Orvard’s Glen Innes team and 28-18 over Mick Pennell’s Ex-Services team. The final went to Peter’s team 22-17 after they led most of the match and had a six-shot advantage going into the last end. They will now travel to Narrabri on 28-29 June for the zone finals.
Pairs heat up
THIS weekend the action will be at Uralla, Ex-Services and City when the district pairs will be played. At Uralla the state divison will be played and it’s a very strong field. Jake Graham and Glen Graham will not be defending their title as Glen has transferred to Ex-Services. Jake has teamed up with Lindsay McIntyre while Glen joins up with Justin Bullen.
Players must be at the club prepared for a 9am roll-up and the bye has gone to Paul Bullen and Dean Farrell and they will play the winners of the match Steve and Todd Fuller against Glen Graham and Justin Bullen. At Ex-Services Brian Lockyer and Matt Hamel will be out to defend their title and hopefully go one better than last year when they finished runners-up in the state final. It is disappointing that only nine teams entered in this event with four from Walcha, three from Ex-Services and one each from City and Glen Innes. We see the same problem in the senior pairs with only eight teams taking part. Defending champions John Jackson and Geoff Reeves will not be together as John is in hospital at present, however Geoff will find a suitable sub.
Pennants look
THE number seven pennant season will start on 15 March with matches at Uralla on the first day and Servies on the Sunday. Matches on the first day will be Uralla against Servies at 9am and Guyra against Uralla at 1pm. Matches for the second day are Guyra against Servies at 9am and Uralla against Servies at 1pm. I do not know if Guyra or Uralla have had trials, however the Services team played a match against City on Saturday and won by 12 shots and they looked pretty strong. With the zone pennants starting in April trials are being played at City on 15 March when City number twos play Ex-Services threes and City threes play Uralla fours.
