Fours to Woolston W.M.C. First title in club’s history

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32561, 22 March 1971, Page 3

Fours to Woolston W.M.C. First title in club’s history

The Woolston 'W.M.C. bowling club, which has been in existence 12 years, took its first centre title yesterday when L. H. Griffin’s team of N. J. Flewellen (lead), G. T. McKay (No. 2), and A. Memory (No. 3) won -the 1971 Christchurch champion-of-cham-pions fours title. Griffin’s final step to victory was a thrilling 16-15 win over G. Matthews (Kaiapoi), but it was very nearly nature which had the final say. ■ ‘ r

After some drawn-out matches had put the programme well behind schedule, the last end of the final was concluded only minutes before darkness engulfed the Burwood club’s green.

Griffin’s team, which has been together seven years, and which four times has won its club championship, had some narrow escapes in its path to the final, although Kaiapoi’s journey was only slightly less hazardous. The evenness of the majority of the 55 teams competing was borne out by the fact that in 10 games the winning margin was only one point After a bye through the first round, Griffin did well to beat the Opawa combination of K. G. Murray, 23-12, but then it was touch and go before he finished Saturday still in contention with a 24-23 win over R. W. Millar (Shirley).

First round In the first round yesterday, Griffin again had some anxious moments before he beat R. Fehsenfeld (Spreydon), 21-18, but this was good grounding for the close shaves that he had in the afternoon. In the first—a semi-final against E. M. McCahon’s Elmwood rink —Griffin won 19-17 after the game had gone to a second extra end, and then in the final the outcome hinged on Matthews’s final delivery. Matthews, who played No. 3 for T. F. Coup when the latter won the 1968 Christmas fours, started on Saturday with a 20-18 win over J. Donaldson (Imperial), and

then followed an 18-15 victory over C L. Watson (Riccarton Racecourse) and a 27-16, success over W. RWilkinson (St Albans)—a game which was in the balance until Wilkinson drove to kill and succeeded in taking out his only bowl on the head and going down six. Yesterday, Matthews, whose partners were H. Trumpet (lead), T. Eder (No. 2) and F. Moss (No. 3), opened with a 22-15 win over K. Grant (Christchurch W.M.C.), before moving into the final with a surprisingly large win over L. C. Lindley’s formidable Christchurch rink. Quarter-finals In the quarter-finals Lindley withstood a late bid by J. Sanders (Canterbury) to win 24-22, and McCahon eliminated G. Ritchie (Papanui), 25-21, in a game which was in doubt until the final end. In this round, Kaiapoi was always in command against Christchurch W.M.C. after opening up an early lead, but for Woolston W.M.C. it was a very different story as Spreydon made a great start and looked set for victory with a 13-1 lead at the completion of eight ends.

However, the Woolston W.M.C. four staged a great recovery, and with a 6 on the nineteenth end, took the lead 20-17 and retained the

advantage through two tense final ends. Lindley, who was attempting to win Christchurch its first champion-of-champions fours title since 1914, managed to win only six of the 19 ends he played against Matthews, and the writing was on the wall from the sixth end when Lindley played an excellent shot to move an opposition bowl, but in doing so shifted the kitty and gave away a 7. This made the score 15-1 to Matthews, and with the Kaiapoi four drawing better than its highly-rated rivals, B. S. Johns, W. J. Cole and S. E. Lawson, went on to win 25-8. , The other semi-final was a very different game, because both Griffin and McCahon looked to have the match in their grasp in the dying stages. McCahon had the better of the early ends, and it was not until .the sixteenth end that Griffin took the lead for the first time, and going into the last end, he held an advantage of three. However, McCahon’s men got the three they needed to force an extra end, and only a close measure failed to take in a fourth counter which would have meant victory there and then.

Extra ends McCahon was in control from the start of the first extra end, and with half the bowls gone, he held four shots. Memory got one off, then Griffin, with his first delivery, removed two more, and with his second bowl clipped the kitty from the rink.

Memory drew two shots on the second extra end, and they stayed put as McCahon failed with two attempts to reshape the head. The final was closely fought from the outset, the tightness of the game being shown by the fact that only on one head was the return more than a two. Griffin was the early leader, but then Matthews won eight out of nine ends to hold a 9-7 lead going into the thirteenth end. Closed gap After seventeen ends Matthews led 13-9, but Griffin took the next two to close the gap to 13-12. The Woolston W.M.C. front men drew four shots on the twentieth end, and for a change Matthews, who had consistently been his side’s saviour, could not change matters with his two bowls. Needing three points to force an extra end Matthews definitely held two of them when the skips changed over on the last end. But to the amazement of the gallery he elected to try and drive out an opposition bowl rather than go for a third drawn counter.

If successful, the drive would have left him holding four shots, but it was narrowly off-course, although it did remove one of his own bowls and in doing so give him a clearer view of the bowl he dearly wanted off the rink. However, the clearer run was of no avail as his last bowl also failed to find the target, although the margin of error was very slight.