National Open Pairs Report
16 Pairs of players arrived at Royal Leamington Spa BC in Warwickshire to contest the National Open Pairs Championship.
The competition is played in a Knockout Format with those losing in the first round entering a Plate competition.
There were some very close games throughout the rounds and when we broke for lunch we had reached the Semi Finals of both competitions, in the Open Pairs event Colin Wagstaff and Daniel Adams were drawn against Dave Fisher and Kieran Rollings, in the other Semi-Final, Jack Pullin and Paul Baker were drawn to play Jennie Sandford and Julia Howard. In the Plate competition Rhys Taylor and Harry Atkin were drawn to play Steve Stockley and Steve Ireland, in the other Semi-Final, Tom Rigby and Craig Bowler were drawn to play Stephen Hartley and Chris Gray.
In the Plate competition Tom and Craig were involved in a very close match against Steve and Chris with the score at 12 – 12 after 11 ends, then Steve and Chris managed to win the remaining ends to win the match 12 – 20. In the other Semi-Final Rhys and Harry started slowly against Steve and Steve and found themselves 11 – 1 down after 5 ends, they staged a fightback to get the score to 8 – 12 after 9 ends but at the end of the match Steve and Steve had won 23 – 12.
The final of the Plate was an excellent match with both Steve and Steve and Steve and Chris playing some scintillating bowls and the game sung one way and then the other and at the end of the session the scores were tied 12 -12 an extra end was required to decide the winner, the final end saw Steve and Steve pick up a 3 to win the competition 15 – 12.
In the Open Pairs, Colin and Daniel held Dave and Kieran to a close start to the match with the score at 4 -5 after 8 ends, then Dave and Kieran managed to win 3 ends without reply to open a 4 – 10 lead which they held on to until the end winning 9 – 12 at the end of the match. The other Semi-Final started well for Jennie and Julia winning the first 3 ends to have a 3 – 0 lead, Jack and Paul then found there range and won the next 7 ends to open up a 15 – 3 lead which they held on to until the end of the match, the final score was 18 – 5.
The Final will be held during the Bowls England National Championships at the 30 August.
Disability Bowls England would like to thank Mal Smith and John Radford who gave up their time to Umpire the competition.
