On a hot and steamy night, Pontymister Athletic welcomed Abercarn to Fields Road for an SML clash. With Abercarn building a very large squad and their MBA team top of Division 5, the mister men knew they were in for a tough challenge and that is exactly what they got, after a very close start, the mister men found themselves 9 shots up after 6 ends with all rinks close. The green was running fast, but true and the home side extended their lead to 14 after 12 ends. With two rinks comfortable for the home team, Graham Smith steered his rink over the line for a narrow win, but Chris Beale fell in a very close encounter to an experienced Abercarn 4 by 3 shots. Final score Ponty Ath 60 – Abercarn 45(12 points – 2).
Rink 2 for the home team saw specialist lead Shaun Kenvyn matched with Beynon Jones, Mike Lyons and Sid Phillips. They were drawn against my old Rugby coach Bryn Elias, the familiar face of Phil Mac, S.Lewis and G.Tutten.After a close start, the Ponty boys struck hard picking up 9 shots in 3 ends with Mike Lyons on fire and eased to a comfortable win by 7 shots.
Rink 3 brought together a new look rink in Spanner, Jamie Roberts, Frankie Trepleton and Captain Chris Beale who faced a very experienced 4 in Ty Evans, T.Carpenter, Peter Robinson and Keith Caddick.
The game was extremely tight with the lead changing hands on numerous occasions before the Abercarn 4 edged ahead thanks to some clever bowls from their back end players, winning by 3 shots.
Rink 4 saw our bleached babe Dai Bowd with Andrew Davies, Ken McKinnon and Graham Smith who took on some very familiar faces in the form of D.Hayes, captain Brian Viney, Dave Wiltshire and the talented skip Mike Edmonds. The game was a very tight low scoring affair with only 1 end yielding a 3 throughout, but it was the Ponty boys who shaded it by 4 shots.
Rink 5 brought together youth and experience for Ponty, Simon Webb continued as lead along with John Sheldon and young gun Eiffel Symonds, playing 3rd again together with our own Lionel Blair (Roger Simms). They were challenged by the Abercarn 4 of A.Medcalfe, C.Reeks, Doc Cooper and M.woodward. Simmsy whipped the boys up and they played some lovely bowls to race into an early and dominant lead and never looked back winning 12 of the 18 ends and recording a 7 shot victory. The big question of course is, should we be playing a 15 year old boy at 3rd, the answer of course is undoubtedly yes. well played Eiffel, you were a tower of strength.
With the sun going down, refreshments were provided, once again, by the dependable Lloyd Turnbull who never fails to excel. In the after game speeches, references were made to our Monmouthshire Triples champions Sid Phillips, Dave Hill and Roger Venn who now head to Llandod for the finals. With no more to say, we wish Abercarn all the very best for the rest of the season and hope they can not only gain promotion, but also be crowned champions..