David Bull Club Triples Challenge 2023
A great day of social bowls was held at the club last Sunday with substantial cash prizes generously donated by Pakenham icon, David W Bull Funeral directors.
Over the last couple of years, as the result both of proactive recruiting and simple good luck, Pakenham Bowls Club has been fortunate to pick up quite a few new members who have filled positions in Pennant teams across the range from Division One to Division Seven. However with the exception of players who have walked straight into the top side, there has been limited opportunity for newer bowlers to play with the more experienced/qualified members or to benefit from their knowledge and skill (although experienced coaches are available). In addition, many of the Division One players are still in full time employment and play only on Saturdays, further limiting those opportunities.
As a way of at least partially addressing the issue, Brian Norton came up with the concept of a triples event with Div One players each skipping a rink with the other two members of each team picked at random from the second, third and fourth sides. Each team was to play three games of six ends, followed by semi-finals and finals – this meant that at a minimum, every player would interact with at least 11 other members with varying experience and skill sets and some would, perhaps for the first time, experience a final played with, against and under the direction of more experienced bowlers with added external pressure created by a (potentially noisy) group of spectators.
Surprisingly, after the three rounds had been played there were only two, three game winners. Brian then had to sort through the cards to find the best two game winners who would also progress to the semi’s – in the meantime, the members tucked into a free sausage sizzle.
Max Mannik, Vince Bevilacqua, Graham Cooper, Darren Webb, Ray Illing and Rick Burns were knocked out in the semi’s while Keith Archer, Michael Hahn and Wayne Oosthuizen took the big money from Peter Bott, Allister Stewart and Brenda Moloney.
Apart from everything else, the day was also meant to be a fun occasion, which it undoubtably was – thanks to Brian Norton’s inspiration and hard work, the generous support of the sponsor, David Bull and the members who took part. Many thanks also to the various volunteers on the day, particularly Gary (and others) for running the bar and those who pitched in to cook the snags and onions.
Des Leigh