The Tenby First Team continued their winning ways at home to Pembroke Dock on a blustery Thursday evening last week. This was a re-arranged fixture due to Tenby facing Henleys of Monmouthshire in the first round of the Carruthers Shield on Saturday and the fixture was a perfect practice match for the forthcoming event. Pembroke Dock had only played 4 league games to Tenby’s seven, but they were the only other undefeated team in the league, so Tenby knew they should not take them lightly. Indeed over recent years Pembroke Dock has been Tenby’s bogey side, albeit mainly in the Dock rather than at Fortress Sutton Street.
In any the game started well, once the mats and kit were finally put out by Dai “it wouldn’t happen in my day” Spencer. On rink one, or Cameron White’s rink as it is becoming, Peter Day’s boys had a tussle against multiple County Champion Les Davies. Les is one of the nicest bowlers your ever likely to meet on and off the green, he’s such a gent he even bought Pat Currie a drink! On the rink he and his men enjoyed a good battle with never more than a couple of shots in it, indeed matters were all square after the 19th end, but with Pat and Peter both adding a shot each they went into the last end two up. Again all the rink played a decent last end taking a three and winning by five in the end. It was a nice start back after injury for Pat, showing that playing away from his accustomed place of skip has not affected his bowls and whilst he may feel he could or should be skipping his attitude has been exemplary (that means good Pat!). As usually Cameron White continued to put in a good performance, Joe Richards being slightly off the mark that evening, no doubt his balance was affected by the reduction in hair following a trip to the Barbers.
With Luke Guymer still playing with his left hand it meant that Mike Jackson continued his role as third to Craig Guymer. With Dai Spencer coming over to second in that rink and Luke Rees continuing his good form this rink was in the box seat from the second end. After dropping a 2 on the first end the boys bounced back with two of their three counts of 5 on the evening and later added to this tally by picking up five 3’s. They only picked up shots on 11 of the 21 ends but such was their scoring ability that when they scored they picked up 2’s, 3’s and 5’s whereas they restricted the opposition to 1’s and 2’s, eventually winning 34-17. The Pembroke Dock boys were very complimentary to the rink afterwards saying that the whole rink had put in a great performance with Craig having one of his usual ‘special’ games.
Sadly the good form didn’t quite follow onto rink three. John Robert’s men were pitted against the canny Brian Dowling. Another one of Pembroke Docks gentlemen bowlers it’s always a pleasure to play against Brian, you know your going to have a hard game against him but he always plays with a smile on his face. That smile was sadly broader that John Roberts’ at the end of the match as Brian pipped JR by 3 shots. It just seemed to be one of those nights for JR. To be fair Luke Guymer is still bowling with his wrong hand and unfortunately it appeared that Dicko had an uncharacteristic off night – to yours truly anyway – I hope there’s not an editors comment in italics stating otherwise! The rink kept trying to the last and having picked up a five with a few ends to go they may even have got closer but time ran out and despite winning the last two ends they fell short by a few.
It was a happier tale on rink 4. Gerald “G-unit” Hewitt was drafted back into side and with swapping Ben Cloake to lead and Geraldo coming in at two there was a nice balance to the rink. Both boys gelling together well up front. Sadly however young Ben decided to play with black socks (“sorry Jon, I was hoping you wouldn’t notice!!”). So another message to his old man Nigel – well done on educating Ben into the world of rock with a foundation of Sabbath, Zeppelin and AC/DC, but try and teach him to remember his correct uniform next time, either that or give him an extra quid pocket money! In the match the back end of yours truly and D&G played well with Wigan having a cracking evening, even with weighted shots, and even though we lost the last three ends the damage had been done early doors and we were convincingly the top rink winning 31-11. Another fine result the for the boys in blue – a perfect first half of the season, 8 out of 8 in the league, 103 out of 112 points and +300 shots difference. The business end of the season now starts, as we entertain Henleys on Saturday. Hopefully your scribe will be waxing about a good win when you read this, if not the match report may only be three words, something like “we lost – gutted”. But with the strength of the side, the balance of youth and experience and the feeling of camaraderie between the boys a trip back to Llandod may not be entirely out of the question.