On a gloriously sunny Spring afternoon, the mister men hit the road again for the potentially dangerous Carruthers Shield game at 4th division Panteg Park. The last time the club played at this venue was in 2002, so this was a new experience for many of our players. Panteg Park are a well organised, good club who always are well turned out and their green played very well.
The mister men started very well, racing into a 10 shot lead across the board after the first end. The Athletic were 25 shots up after 10 ends, 40 shots to the good after 15 ends and eventually run out winners 54-122.
Top rink for the mister men was the four of young Ethan Simmonds, experienced campaigner Keith Richards, the evergreen Roger Simms and the dependable Roger Venn who trailed 6-5 after 8 ends against “The Park’s” S. Vaughn, C. Bryant, greenkeeper Paul Grey, and M. Bird, but rallied soon after picking up a succession of counts to take firm control of the game and eventually winning convincingly 10-34.
Next door, the Pontymister rink of Captain Supremo Chris Beale, hard hitting Scotchman Ken McKinnon, Dave Hill fresh from his holidays, and club Chairman Andrew Goodwin were always in control against P. Eastman, B. Roberts, A. Winstone and V. Jones, leading narrowly 11-14 at the midway point, but increasing that to 12-23 at 15 ends before running out winners 16-27.
On rink 2 Chris Simmonds, Sid Phillips, Andy Elias and the shy, retiring Ronnie “the rocket” Morgan blasted off to an 0-8 lead against the Panteg Park rink of B. Porter, C. Guinne, L. Jones and G. Herbert after 5 ends, before the “park” staged something of a mini comeback to trail only 7-12 after 10 ends. After this point though the mister men shifted into warp factor 4 eventually landing as 13-29 victors.
On rink 1, Pontymister’s Dave Bowd, Graham Smith, Richie Murphy and Nick Harris started well with a 2 and a 3, but then dropped two consecutive counts against G. Collins, W. Evans, Duncan Lewis and Terry Casa to trail 9-6 on 5 ends, the mister men began to gain the upper hand & led 10-17 after 10 ends, with the Panteg men narrowing the scoreline to 14-19 on 15 ends before the Athletic won 5 of the last 6 ends to run out 15-32 winners.
The match was played in a very sporting, friendly but competitive manner throughout and afterwards a very pleasant hour was spent with our hosts who provided us with a very tasty buffet and cold drinks.
We thank Panteg Park for their warm hospitality and wish them a very successful season.
Next up in this year’s Carruthers Shield adventure is another away tie at Caerleon next Saturday 18th May.