Falcon Bowls at Chelmsford held two charity pairs competition last weekend ( 1st and 2nd June). Hertfordshire had ten members attend both days, eight as players and two as crowd support. Saturday was the ‘Trevor Pay Pairs’. With 64 pairs entered in sixteen groups of four. The morning saw each pair play three games of nine ends with the top two pairs going forward to the main competition and the lower two pairs entered into the plate. Our pairs of Darren Brown & Mark Spalding and Dennis Mack & Jeff Branch won through to the main cup with the pairs of Beverly Stevenson & Alan Hare and Julia Bruce & Jan Rogers playing in the plate.
The afternoon saw the knockouts begin. In both the Cup and the Plate all four of our pairs won their first match of the afternoon and progressed to the last sixteen in their respective competitions. The second round of the competitions saw our pairing of Julia & Jan just miss out losing 6 -7. With the other three pairs winning their second-round match they were all in the last eight. The third round saw our pairing of Darren Brown and Mark Spalding win through for a place in the semi-finals with our other two teams losing out to some strong pairings.
The Semi- Final saw Darren and Mark beat Terry and Shannon Mead 13 – 2 for a place in the final. The Final saw our pair come against the pair of Mitchell Young and Craig Burgess who are currently placed No 23 and No 1 in the world rankings. The first three ends of this nine end final saw Mitchell and Craig pull out a 7 – 0 lead. Darren and Mark then changed tactics with Mark ditching the Jack at every opportunity. This turned the game around, the following six ends saw Darren and Mark slowly pull back and then overtake Mitchell and Craig to win the competition 9 – 7.
Congratulations go to Darren and Mark from all of Hertfordshire.
Sunday the 02nd saw our four pairs playing again in the Falcon Open Pairs this time with three bowls each the competition was now over eight ends. With the same format of the day before our pairs were playing three games each in a round robin during the morning session. This time three of our pairs made it through to the Cup competition with Beverly & Alan entering the Plate. In contrast to the day before Darren & Mark lost out in the first knockout round but our other three pairs won their matches to make the last sixteen. Jeff & Dennis then progressed to the last eight in the Cup and Beverly & Alan won through to the last eight in the plate, narrowly missing out for a quarter final place were Julia & Jan, losing by one shot in a very close match. In the Quarter finals of the Cup Jeff & Dennis got drawn against Mitchell & Craig (see above) and lost 4 – 9 in an exciting match. Beverly & Alan won their Quarter Final match and now had a place in the Semi’s. The semi final had them drawn against the pair that went on to win the Plate.
Well done to all eight competitors. Let’s see if Hertfordshire can get more entries in these competitions at Chelmsford. Entries are now open for the World Pairs and World Fours in December. We know that some of the above have already booked their places.