Mixed Double Rink

The first Saturday in June saw our team referred to as Wroughton B, only for the purpose of the draw, take on Devizes B in what was always goiong to be a tight encounter. The format, consisiting of one rink home and one away saw Angela Harrison, Teresa Moon, Pete Webster and Gerry Charman take a trip across the county while Gary Shakespeare, Kay Burgess, Julie Shakespeare and Luke Vizor tried to make home advantage count.  The weather was set fair as the early stages at home  yielded few shots and after 5 ends Luke's rink were trailing by a couple, 3-5 down. Away from home a 5 dropped on the 3rd   end meant that after 5 we also railed, though only one shot as the overall score filtered through to have us 8-11 behind   overall. Both rinks dropped a single on the 6th end, though this only served to spur our home rink on as a strong front end   display, backed up by some great bowls from Julie and Luke saw Wroughton pick up the next 5 ends incuding consecutive   3's to open up a 13-6 lead after 11.  Over at Devizes Gerry's rink lost ends 7-11 though they managed to keep all 4 ends to   1 shot and trailed 7-13, maing the overall score 20-19 as it became clear this would be a close tussle. End 13 saw both   rink win the end picking up 4 shots in the process and things looked to be swinging in our favour, at home as the Devizes   skip stood on the mat to bowl last wood of end 14, excellent work from the home quartet saw him 4 down, but an excellent bowl to push and stay saw Luke's rink drop a single, a dropped 2 away from home saw the scores tied across the board at 24 a piece. End 15 saw Wrougton take a 3 shot lead while the 16th end saw Devizes claim 2 singles to have a single shot seperate the sides with 4 ends to play across the 2 venues. The penultimate end at Wroughton saw the home rink holding 4 again, this time though there skip couldnt bail them out as Gary and Kay both had a bowl to count and combined with a single away, the final jacks were cast with Wroughton holding a 4 shot lead overall. A solid start had Wroughton holding 3 with Julie having played a great cover bowl to ensure it would be difficult to drop any sort of large count, 1 down \luke attempted to draw shot but just caught a short opposition bowl to clear a line for his opposite number, meaning a dropped 2 menat a victory at home by 18 shots to 12 and a nervous wait for news to filter through from Gerry. It was the news we wanted as a single picked up away meant a narrow defeat away ensured an overall victory by 3 shots and second round tie against either Devizes A or Avon. Our A team will join them in the second round after a bye in round 1 meant a tie against Wootton Basset B is on the horizon.

In Other News

Results in other competions have been a little mixed with varying amounts of sucess, here is a round up of the action so far. In the ladies nationals there was an outstanding performance in the first round of the 4's as Hanna Gauld, accompanied by Teresa Moon, Carole Jones and Kay Burgess pulled off a huge win against a strong Wootton Basset rink who would have fancied there chances of making Leamington. Unfortunately all our rinks lost in round 2 fallling to strong sides from Calne, Westlecot and Stratton. The triples saw a similar fate against familiar opposition as tough draws faced our three entries with early exits for all. We had 2 pairs take to the green with Sue Fletcher losing to and experienced Chippenham Town pair while Julie Shakespeare (subbing for Babs Salter) made it through round 1 before falling to Supermarine in round 2. The ladies singles starts on the 16th with 3 ladies starting their campaigns for national glory.  Judy Hallard did make it through her group in the 2 wood and faces tough opposition in Sue Cooke in the last 8.

Our men haven't faired much better though there has been one huge moment of success, but we will get on to that at the end. Our sole entry in the national 4's won there opening match on a wet night at Haydon Wick but fell at home to a Bassett 4 who won the national title a few years ago. Oliver Moody had to concede his triples while Luke Vizor crashed out to Jake Webster at Westlcot and the pairs start in the coming weeks.  Our top club lost away at Malmesbury on what is definately a home rink with our side struggling in the early stages on the quick, swingy artifical surface. We would suffer the same fate there in the 2 4's as our A team won one rink and lost the other to go down by 6. There was more positive news as our B team beat an experienced Westlecot side at home, our first win in this competition for many years, unfortunately that was as far as they went, losing to a very strong Highworth side in a game that was very close at the half way side before Highworth managed to pull away as their Middleton cup stars began to find some big bowls to progress to the area quarter final. In the men's senior pairs, Gerry Charman and Iand Farragher march on after they followed up a 1 shot victory at Highworth with a 2 shot success against Steve Rose of Haydon Wick. They face a pair from Chippenham Park this week with a place in the quarter finals at stake.Gerry's rink have also have a shot at the last  after dispatching Miles Roberts of Westlecot they face a tricky journey to Holt with another quarter final place in the line. Onto a moment of succuss, our congratulaitons go out to Colin Childs who claimed a huge scalp as he disposed of a former national title holder and stalwart of the Wiltshire Middleton cup side for any years as he triumphed over Dave Snell of Wootton Bassett 15-10 in the 2 wood, he now faces Barry Sictorness of the same club, we wish him every luck in this encounter.

Mixed competitons are now underway, we have heard how the double rinks are doing, our officers triple, who hope to go one further than last years performanace of runners up have been given a walkover by North End and now face either Highworth or Chippenham Town who betwen them have won the last 2 titles. Mixed pairs saw Oliver Moody and Judy Hallard win their first round encounter before losing (Luke Vizor subbed in for this game) away at Chippenham Town, while Andy Waite and Sue Fletcher lost to a paipr from the same club in round 1.  In the 4's, Judy Hallard, Su and Graham Clinch and Luke Vizor beat a strong rink from Stratton, however a changed 4 of Judy, Julie Shakespeare, Graham and Oliver Moody couldnt make it across the line against Chippenhan Park's Keith Hutchens. Finally Sue Fletcher remains in the competition with her rink featuring players from Box and Wootton Bassett, she finds herself just 2 wins away from an area final.

Our congratulations also go to Sue Fletcher who was named as a travelling reserve for the John's Trophy side who began their campaign with with a narrow victory over Somerset.