Tenby take honours in El Classico (II)
The Tenby team revisited Saundersfoot for the second time already this season on 21st May for a re-match of their Carruthers first round game. Sadly news spread throughout the ranks that morning that Henry Dennis, father of Berwyn and Myrddin and Grandfather of Joe, had passed away that morning. As is customary and minute’s silence was observered for this friend of Saundersfoot Bowling Club.
After the sombre start the atmosphere cranked up slowly over the first few ends with Saundersfoot starting the stronger, indeed after about 5 ends they were 8 shots up. The main deficit for the Tenby side coming from Andrew Muskett’s rink, who were 9-2 down to Berwyn Dennis. However the Tenby rinks battled back, lead by the rink of John Roberts and by tea the game was all square. Curiously in this day and age we then all left the green to have tea upstairs in the pavilion. The reason being that the Health and Safety police have decided it’s far too dangerous to carry a tray of tea down a set of stairs – has the world gone mad?! Anyway Pat Currie – ever one for a useful thought – offered his contribution by suggesting Saundersfoot utilise their “Stenna” stair lift! It’s “Stanna” Pat, but thanks for the £1 fine, you were doing well up until then.
Anyway in this match the break for tea certainly helped the boys in blue as they came out afterwards with all guns blazing. On rink 6 Cameron White, fuelled by four doughnuts six biscuits and a pasty, was like a machine. Consistently drawing to the jack and giving another very impressive display of lead bowling. Again, as has been the case all year he was supported by the coiffure Joe Richards. With another member of the hair bear bunch Pat Currie at third Peter Day and his rink were able to put the Saundersfoot rink to the sword, scoring on almost every end after tea. From a slow start, being 5 shouts down after 6 ends the rink ended up winning by 19 shots – a fantastic turn around.
Next to them Wigan’s rink were again slow out of the blocks. From 9-2 down however they slowly ground themselves back into the game, parity coming at 11-11. From then on, again the doughnuts must have helped because for every end after tea they scored, except dropping one count of four following a tremendous drive by Berwyn to take out a single bowl from a full length jack. Dai Spencer and Mike Jackson really turned their games around after a loose first few ends when to be fair it was only the skill of Muskey who kept us in the game, but eventually a win by 8 shots against Berwyn is a pried treasure.
On the inside rinks it was a different story – John Roberts taking over the skipping duties from Paul Diment certainly had his work cut out for him against Donny Poole and Simon Evans. 
However it was the Tenby rink who grabbed this game by the scruff of the neck. Tenby’s Mr Consistent this year, Neil Dickenson put in another fine performance, as did JB who always likes saving his best bowls for when playing with Paul. If only to get him of his back I think! The move appears to be an inspired one by the selectors (!) as John looked in inspirational form, even playing a few weighted woods. They were convincing winners in this encounter, winning by 12 shots and only losing 7 ends in the process.
Sadly the successes of the other three rinks could not be repeated by “the babies”. Craig Guymer’s rink losing by 9 shots to an excellent Myrddin Dennis and an inform Alan Brain. Try as the boys might they simply couldn’t get a foothold in the game and were always on the back foot, eventually losing out by 9. At least it gave the Captain more people to fine however; the end of season venue has now been changed to The Ritz.
So a solid 30 shot win for Tenby means that so far they have only dropped 2 points out of a possible 42.