Two More Wins

Apparently there was a difference of ten degrees between Whitley Bay and Hexham the other day, and we had a minor version of that disparity when playing at Throckley on Wednesday. Leaving Hexham in bright, warm sunshine we saw the sea-mist clouds building up as we drove east, and hit the incoming greyness a mile or so from Throckley. Short sleeves didn’t last long. But if the weather was a let-down (to the home side too, as it had been sunny there all day) the plus side was a rejuvenated green at the Throckley club. To be honest, in previous years the green was regarded as one of the roughest in the area, but to their enormous credit the club has spent a lot of time and money putting things right, and the green was in super condition.

Results on the four rinks were very varied. After five ends rinks 1 and 4 were 7-1 up and 1-7 down, respectively, and those margins continued for the rest of the match, with the two rinks finishing 26-9 and 8-26. With those two cancelling one another out, rink 2 underlined the overall closeness: here we were two shots down after five ends, one down after ten, two ahead after 15 ends, and then, having been a few shots down on the last end, Mark managed to winkle out a single to draw the game 15-all. Quite apart from being a draw, this was also the lowest-scoring game.

With each club having won one rink and the other drawn, league points would have been shared evenly, but we would have lost the six bonus points as we were one shot behind overall. However – spoiler alert – the result on rink 3 was to make those points safe for us, as Brian Elstob’s team increased their lead throughout the match, from three shots at five ends to eight at fifteen and then on to twelve with a 24-12 win. The final result was therefore two rinks to one, with one drawn, and a league points win by a margin of 11-3.

Last week we noted how our teams have improved as the game went on, and the same was true here. We were just one shot ahead overall after five ends, and the identical margin after ten; the lead was eight after 15 ends and then eleven at the end of the match. Nothing spectacular, maybe, but a good solid performance all the same, and that might also sum up the West Tyne encounter with Prudhoe Castle the next night.

Once again there was a drawn rink, in a game where the lead fluctuated but never by more than a shot or two. Brian Elstob’s team looked as if they had earned a win, going into the last end two ahead and then being just one shot down until the last bowl of the match, when the Prudhoe skip made it two shots and managed a draw. The other rinks were rather different in the way they progressed. After being six down after three ends Trevor’s rink came back to level things up, such that there was only one shot in it after five and ten ends, and at 15 ends the score was 11-11; but at this point getting two twos meant a lead that was quite easy to defend on the last. Meanwhile, Mark’s rink seemed to have drawn tough opponents on paper, but on the night (which is where it matters!) they went into an early lead and from 5-1 after five ends racked up several big scores to reach 16-4 after ten; even if the shots were shared evenly after this the damage had been done and the result was a 12-point win, 22-10. So it was another big win, 4.5 points out of the possible five, and for the moment we are clear at the top of the table. But to adapt the old football adage, no one ever won the league in June. In other words (cliché alert) we might have been “over the moon, Brian” on Thursday but now we have to take each game as it comes.