Despite the ominous forecast of heavy rain and a yellow weather warning from the met office for rain and thunderstorms our brave warriors travelled to Oakdale for our first South Mon League fixture of the season.
Unfortunately the weather forecast was correct and it proved to be a very wet, and difficult evening with the green being recently fertilised making the bowls very slippery and not easy to grip. With the amount of water involved it was appropriate to call this a “titanic” battle which Oakdale eventually won by 1 shot 46-45, picking up 9 points with the “mister men” taking 5 points.
On rink 1 Martyn Watkins (defiantly wearing only his shorts and polo shirt despite the heavy rain), Mike Lyons (fully protected from the elements), Graham Smith and Andrew Goodwin battled hard for a 15-10 victory.
On rink 2 John Sheldon, Jack Collier, Sid Phillips and Richard Murphy recorded an excellent 15-7 victory.
The wheels (or more appropriately “the rudders”) came off the wagon (or the boat) on rink 3 however as the hapless foursome of Jamie Roberts, Ian Collier, Captain Chris Beale and tropical player Nick Harris never got to grips with conditions (or their bowls for that matter) and were well and truly sunk by a scoreline of 5-19.
The four on Rink 4 of Richard Beaugie, Ken McKinnon, Andrew Elias and the shy, retiring figure of Ron Morgan back on his old stomping ground recorded a hard fought 10-10 draw.
There was also a friendly fifth rink of David Bowd, debutant Beynon Jones, Keith Richards, and Roger Simms who very diplomatically played out a honourable draw and very wisely only played 12 ends.
It must be said that despite the monsoon like conditions and the heavy layer of fertiliser, the green itself played well up until the last couple of ends when the accumulation of water started to make things very difficult.
The highlight of the evening was the buffet afterwards , a traditional savoury offering of fresh bread and butter, tasty cheese, pate, pasties, pork pies, crisps and cakes to follow.
Our thanks go to our friends at Oakdale for their hospitality. We wish them a very successful season and look forward to seeing them at Fields Road for the return fixture when hopefully the weather will be much kinder.