Castle 87  v Five Arches 65

The Five Arches started their campaign in the First Division with an away trip to Haverfordwest to play Castle. We were hoping for a good start to the new season and with the weather being kind we started in good spirits.

Ashley and his rink of Ken and uncle and nephew combination of Tony and Joe struggled out on rink 3. Up against a strong Castle rink, they only managed to collect 2 shots by tea to trail by a massive 20 shots. A more even second half followed with the Five Arches quartet at least getting into double figures however they finished well behind by 34 shots to 10. Tony playing with Jim, Peter and Stuart had a much closer game. After ten ends the score was 7 shots to 5 to the Castle foursome. This lead was increased to 14 shots to 9 at the 17th end but then the Five Arches rallied picking up two 3's and a single to win three out of the remaining four ends to clinch victory by one shot. Special mention must go to Tony's final bowl which moved the jack back to make the three shots required to win.

Clive, Harold, John and Ray were involved in another thriller. They started well on a tricky green and were leading by  14 shots to 8 after 10 ends. The game got closer and closer and the Castle team had levelled the game after 19 ends. Reluctant skip Clive then showed true skip qualities by playing telling bowls in the last 2 ends to gain shots and run out winners by 22 shots to 20. Finally to complete a trio of tight games, Ray aided and abetted by John, Steve and vice-captain Ben were involved in another tight tussle. 11 shots to 8 down after 10 ends, they couldn't quite get back into the lead, narrowing the gap to one shot on a couple of occasions but trailed by 4 going into the last end.  Fine bowling by all four let them pick up three shots to fall short by only one.

A very satisfactory start to the season, picking up a couple of rinks away from home in our first game in the First Division was a fine performance. We can now look forward to our first game at home on Sunday against Pendine.

Joe Hewitt, Tony Powling, Ken Lloyd, Ashley Hooper 10                 G Jones 34
Stuart Askew, Jim Taylor, Peter Hooper, Tony Brown 16                B Absalom 15
Ray Hine, John Hubbard, Harold Ebdon, Clive Webb 22                   D Summers 20
John Rees, Steve Davies, Ben Simmons, Ray Taylor 17                    R Jones 18