ISLE OF WIGHT PAIRS VIII

We were back on the Isle of Wight once again for the week of 2nd to 6th October 2017.

FOURS
All the teams would play two games per evening on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Monday Night
There was a good spread of results which meant that only 4 of the 15 teams won both of their games.

Savage-Walker-Cannon had 4 points and 20 shots (and only conceded 2), King-Curd were just one shot behind, Rookard-Burrows-Daniels were another shot back and Goodrich-Cousins had scored 13 shots.

Tuesday Night
The top 4 teams remained top 4 after Tuesday's games but none of them were able to keep their perfect records.

Closest were Goodrich-Cousins who won one and lost one. They were now on 7 points, one clear of the rest. As for the rest it was super close for second with Savage-Walker-Cannon, King-Curd and Rookard-Burrows-Daniels all on 6 points and with 29, 29 and 28 shots respectively.

Wednesday Night
The leaders lost their first game of the evening as did King-Curd which meant that Savage-Walker-Cannon and Rookard-Burrows-Daniels were now the joint leaders on 8 points, one clear of the rest.

And what's more the two would be playing one another so whoever won would be the overall winners. With the two teams equal on points and shots you'd think it would have been a close game but it turned out not to be so as the Savage-Walker-Cannon team didn't put a foot wrong and eventually came home to a comfortable 9-1 win.

That left them top on 10 points while Goodrich-Cousins won their last game to finish on 9 points in a clear second place.

PAIRS
We had a near record 34 pairs competing which meant that it was a bit of a squeeze in the Bowls Room, but it made for a very good atmosphere.

As usual it would be 2 games for each team on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning with the top 12 teams playing on in the Knockout Rounds and Thursday afternoon.

Round 1 (Tuesday)
Sixteen teams won their first game, the best of whom were Harold & Patricia Ball and David Clemmet & Angela Newling who scored 10 shots. Meanwhile Annette Iskett & Sylvia Ballinger, Jim & Sally Goodrich and Roy & Jean Tolhurst were all just one shot behind.

Round 2 (Tuesday)
A mere 7 teams were able to repeat their win earlier in the day which suggested that at the end of the week there were probably going to be a lot of teams in the reckoning.

Jim & Sally Goodrich had moved up to the top spot with 21 shots, Betty Johnson & Paul Daniels were a shot behind and Roy & Jean Tolhurst were another shot back.

David Clemmet & Angela Newling were on 17 shots, Dee Whittaker and Chris Tilbrook and John Ballinger & Maureen Darvill had 15 shots and Peter & Diane Orrin had 13 shots.

Round 3 (Wednesday)
We were down to only 3 teams with a 100% record at the halfway point.

Betty Johnson & Paul Daniels had 6 points and 36 shots, Dee Whittaker and Chris Tilbrook had 26 shots and John Ballinger & Maureen Darvill 21 shots.

Still undefeated, having dropped one point were David Clemmet & Angela Newling and Greg & Glenyce King.

Round 4 (Wednesday)
After Wednesday's final games things were unchanged from the previous round of games.

The same 5 teams were in the same order, each have added a couple of points to their tally.

Behind them though, things were much changed. After 3 games there were 9 teams who had won two and lost one. After the fourth game only 2 of those teams won again, Peter & Brenda Bol and Paul & Sue Cousins.

Round 5 (Thursday)
There was plenty of change first thing as each of the three leading teams lost their perfect records. Betty & Paul and Dee & Chris both managed to lose, but John & Maureen did better and managed to get a draw which was good enough to ensure that they had qualified.

Also maintaining their unbeaten record were the Kings who moved on to 9 points and qualified.

Behind those 4 were now 4 teams on 7 points all of whom were in with a very strong chance of qualifiying, they were David Clemmet & Angela Newling, Jim & Sally Goodrich, Roy & Jean Tolhurst and Doug & Maureen Howes.

Round 6 (Thursday)
The Qualifiers were now being added with each set of games. Betty & Paul took their 5th win and guaranteed themselves a spot in the Quarter Finals while Doug & Maureen won to go on to 9 points.

Paul & Sue Cousins won for the 4th time and that was enough for them to go through, along with Roy & Jean Tolhurst, Peter & Doris Frost, Peter & Brenda Bol and Harold & Patricia Ball who all finished on 8.

The final pairs to have their places confirmed were Jim & Sally Goodrich, who finished 3rd, and David Clemmet & Angela Newling who snuck in on 7 points.

Knockout Rounds
Round 1
Doug & Maureen Howes edged away from Harold & Patricia Ball and finished up 9-1 winners.

Paul & Sue Cousins were 5-0 up after 3 ends and just hung on as Peter & Brenda Bol came back but just fell short, finishing 5-4 down.

David Clemmet & Angels Newling were 4-1 over John Ballinger & Maureen Darvill after a couple of ends, but John & Maureen came back to lead 6-4 3 ends later and finished 7-5 winners.

Roy & Jean Tolhurst never got a look in against Peter & Doris Frost who ran away to an 11-0 lead after just 4 ends. It ended as a 12-2 win for the Frosts.

Quarter Finals
Greg & Glenyce King drew away from John Ballinger & Maureen Darvill in the middle part of the game and finished 7-3 ahead.

Betty Johnson & Paul Daniels managed to pick up 4 shots on the first end against Peter & Doris Frost. The Frosts though were level again at 5-5 after 5 ends, but Betty & Paul took one each on the last 2 ends to take the win.

Jim & Sally Goodrich also picked up 4 on the first end, against Doug & Maureen Howes, but they never relinquished the lead as they won 9-3.

Dee Whittaker & Chris Tilbrook had eased out to a 10-1 lead with 2 ends to go at which point the game was all but over, except that Paul & Sue Cousins managed to pick up a full house of 6 shots on end 6 to suddenly spark the game back into life. And with one wood left they were had enough to at least take the game to an extra end, however Chris was able to recover the situation with his last wood and restrict the opposition to just one and win the game 10-7.

Semi-Finals
Despite Betty Johnson & Paul Daniels picking up one on the first end Greg & Glenyce King got to grips with the carpet much better, running away to an 8-1 lead. Betty & Paul pulled back a few shots over the last couple of ends to finish with an 8-4 win for the Kings.

It was a bit of a topsy turvy game between Dee Whittaker & Chris Tilbrook and Jim & Sally Goodrich. Dee & Chris picked up 3 on the first end, but Jim & Sally pulled back to level over the next 2 ends. But ends 4 & 5 saw Dee & Chris pick up 3 on each taking them to a 9-3 lead with 2 ends to go. All done? Not quite. The 6th end saw the jack pushed back to the end of the mat which Jim & Sally found to the tune of 3, bringing it back to 9-6. Still a big hill to climb. An even bigger hill as Dee & Chris were holding and Sally was all but blocked out with only one wood to come. There was however a wood sized hole to get through into the head and she found it, to take the jack back to hold 5, Chris couldn't cut them down and the comeback of all comebacks was done as the Goodrichs won the game 11-9.

Final
Greg & Glenyce King v Jim & Sally Goodrich
The Kings pretty much picked up where they left off. They took 2 on the first end and on the second with Jim & Sally holding one Glyn took a calculated risk, found exactly the right narrow line into the head, punched the opposition's best wood out and held 4.

Jim & Sally took back 2 on the next end but that was cancelled out on end 4 to see the Kings lead 8-2 and this time it looked like there would be no way back.

The Goodrichs brought the lead down, by just one and again the Kings replied with one for themselves. 9-3 and just one end to go.

For the second game in a row the Kings had the luxury of a 6 shot lead going into the last end and they weren't going to let it go. Any faint hope was quickly extinguished and the Kings ended up adding another 2 to their tally, taking a convincing 11-3 win.

Once again we found ourselves not only with an excellent week's competition but unseasonably sunny weather for the beginning of October. It goes without saying that we will be back in a year's time and we look forward to seeing everyone again then, if not before.

You can find a full copy of the week's results here.

tanddcarpetbowls@gmail.com
6th October 2017