Hawks secure finals berth

CITY Oval has recorded a comfortable away win at Victoria in Division 1 Ballarat District Bowls Division Saturday Pennant action, and in doing so secured finals with the team replacing the Big V in second position on the ladder.

In a tightly contested race to make the four, the loss saw Victoria drop to fifth on the table after Central Wendouree had a strong win away at Beaufort, meaning the visitors nudged into the last post season place.

“The side started off slowly having to adjust to Victoria’s carpet green and the draw bowling early in early stages of the game, but skipper Wayne Roberts helped the team stay in touch with their opponents as the players game to grips with the playing surface,” said City Oval’s Ian Robinson.

“The very good performance of Chris Smith’s rink of Peter Orr, Bryan Coutts and Leigh McKenzie having a solid win over the highly regarded Victoria rink of Richard Haddrick’s played a key part to our success.”

It was a close battle between Alan Dennis and Ben Morris’ rinks with both skippers bowling well all day, while the Vics Alan Dennis managed to score the narrow single shot victory and the only rink up for the home side.

“All things considering our team did well in adjusting to the competition in Division 1 this season having been promoted from Division 2 last year,” said Victoria’s Robert Chapman. “Had we been able to finish in the four and play finals it would have been the icing on the cake.”

Overall the Club has managed to put on a good program of bowls this season given the challenges and complexities we have come up against dealing with the COVID-19 issue.

On Sunday the Club will be hosting its 39th Gold Nugget tournament which is a big event on the Ballarat bowls calendar.

Victoria’s Premier Division will head up the club’s finals campaign after finishing in second position behind Ballarat Memorial Sports and next week will play off against Sebastopol with the winner then into the grad final.

In Division 4 the Vics were on the road at City Oval and lost, but nevertheless managed to narrowly retain fourth position ahead of City Oval and will go on to play Linton in the first week of the finals.

In an upset, Sebastopol’s Division 2 side had a significant win over Ballarat with the home side rink of Rob Baker, Ross Nicol, Andrew Anderson and Neil Morris getting victory over Paul Ashmore by scoring the necessary shots up to cover the other three home rinks who lost out to Ballarat’s Stan Barnett, Peter Fothergill and Paul Slater.

Finals will start next Saturday with teams finishing in first position on the ladder playing the fourth placed teams and second playing third with the winners to go on to play in the grand final the following week.

Ballarat Memorial Sports head into the finals campaign with their Premier and Division 4, 6 and 7 sides hoping to conclude the season with success; their Division 2 side narrowly missing a finals berth by a single shot and percentage to Invermay and Division 8 likewise missing out by a couple of points and percentage of playing finals.

Out at Linton, the country club had their sides in Division 4 and 7 finish on top of the ladder and going on to play finals and with their Premier side having performed admirably in 5th place with 7 wins for the season.

Bungaree Bowling Club, while not playing finals, have had a good year given their sides were promoted into the higher grades this season and their Division 2 side finished in 7th position while Division 5 and 8 both finished in 6th position with 7 wins each for the season and the prospect of launching into next season’s competition with anticipation of retuning to the post season.

Country clubs are well represented in this year’s finals in Division 2, with Clunes, Daylesford and Invermay, and Division 3, where Creswick, Learmonth and Ballan, will all play next Saturday.

 

-BY ANTHONY McCABE