On another sunny, warm afternoon the mister men were on the road again for the next chapter in this season’s Carruthers Shield adventure.
Today we were at Caerleon where we met up with a few old friends from our by gone years.
Caerleon have been struggling for playing members in recent seasons but are always well organised and we knew that anything can happen in the Carruthers shield and as they had home advantage we were prepared for another tough battle.
The game began very tightly and Caerleon held a 3 shot lead overall after 5 ends, Pontymister edged ahead by 2 shots after 10 ends, but extended their lead to 24 shots on 15 ends before winning by 30 shots overall 64-94 at the end.
The green played a little tricky and heavy and it certainly took the away team some time to get to grips with it.
On rink 2, the foursome of promising young Ethan Simmonds, veteran Keith Richards, all rounder Roger Simms, and the consistent Roger Venn started slowly against P. Edwards, G. Morgan, Roy Evans and K Jones. The Pontymister men were 1-7 down after 5 ends, but began to get their arm going to lead 8-10 on 10 ends, 10-17 on 15 ends before winning 14-22.
On rink 3, Chris Simmonds, Sid Phillips, Andy Elias & Ronnie “out” Morgan were 2-5 up against P. Church, H. McDonald, D. Lee, and Mike Jones after 5 ends, and led by the same 3 shot margin 7-10 on 10 ends before they began to move away 11-18 on 15 ends to finally win comfortably 15-29.
On rink 4, Dave Bowd, Graham Smith, Richie Murphy and Nick Harris had a tough afternoon against Derek Miles, Peter Stark who played magnificently, Ian Bode and Mike Piper. The mister men struggled to find the tight line and dropped too many bowls short. The score was tied 4-4 on 5 ends, with Caerleon leading 10-7 on 10 ends, 16-13 on 15 ends before Caerleon deservedly won 22-18.
On rink 5, the rink of stand in Captain Chris Beale, Ken McKinnon, Dave Hill and Andrew Goodwin took some time to adapt to conditions against Caerleon’s H. Thomas, M. Gillott, J. Griffiths and George Gibb narrowly leading 3-4 on 5 ends before beginning to get to grips with conditions for a 6-12 lead on 10 ends, increasing that to 6-19 on 15 ends before winning convincingly 13-25.
Despite a few rumblings in the distance and one or two drops of rain being felt around the 15th end the forecasted thunderstorms never materialised and an enjoyable time was had. The afternoon ended with a very pleasant buffet and cold drinks.
We thank Caerleon for being such great hosts and wish them all the very best for the rest of the season.
For the mister men, the draw for the last qualifying round of the Carruthers has given us a home tie against our friends from Ynysddu on Saturday 25th May so we will need to be at our best for that match.