2023 Swan Hill Carnival

Well the 2023 Swan Hill Carnival  is over and the WA team were very competitive this year especially in the event side of the competition.  To show this WA won the CONSISTENCY TROPHY as we accumulated the most points.  With victories in the Fours, Pairs and doing well in the singles we pipped NSW for the trophy.  In the sides event we finished fourth.

You can read below to see how the individual games went below.

One good thing that was great to see was the enthusiasm of the first attendees it was a pleasure to have you there with us and get on board the WA train.  As usual WA members were always visible supporting the various teams a big congratulations to all.

SIDES 

Well we struggled in the sides competition, we were very competitive as a group early in most games then we didnt quite manage to finish.  IN the end our only victory was against QLD which was probably their strongest side we had seen away in a few years.  The sides was won by NSW.

The same went for our associate fours who won only one game against Victoria.

 Singles Results

We had three player sin the singles, with Joe Rollnik, Alan Booth and Keith Guelfi.  Our only winner in the first round was Keith and he progressed through to the Major Final were he played against a very in form Gus Guy from Victoria.  Keith fought valiantly but was defeated by Gus.

In the plate Joe lost his game to a  Victorian as well in Luke Milesi.  

Alan Booth had a very tough draw in the plate and played some great games to make the plate final.  Here he played a true gentlemen of NSW of Mark Sheppard.  There were some terrific bowls played and CONGRATULATIONS to ALAN on winning the plate final.

PAIRS 

We set out with 7 pairs teams which the selectors thought were quite strong.  This is an event that WA has not won since 2002.

 In the end the selection proved to be correct with 5 of our 7 winning their first game to progress through.  Garry Rowlinson had to pull out due to hip soreness and thanks to Jeff Humpleby for filling in.

Trev McGillivray and Scott Bermingham had a massive win in their first game, but lost to a NSW duo who made the semi final.

In the quarterfinals we had 4 teams in the major and unfortunately two WA teams had to play each other Kerry and Ron Hutchinson played Darren Rowlinson and Paul Walker and in a great game the Darren and Paul duo won through to the semi final.

The semi finals saw WA with 3 of the 4 teams left.  Unfortunately for Darren and Paul they had to play another WA team in Brett McCance and Phil Dobie.  Brett and Phil started off superb and got off to a commanding lead which Darren and Paul were unable to peg back.  In the other semi final saw Ian Cornthwaite and Mike Carey play a NSW team of Craig SLEIGH and Gavin Richardson.  Corny and Mike fought through in an up and down battle to eventually come out on top.

This saw an all WA final which was very tight for much of the game and then with a few ends to go Corny and Mike got the break.  In the end Corny and Mike finished in front so CONGRAULATIONS to Corny and Mike on winning the Pairs and to Brett and Phil on finishing Runners Up.

FOURS 

WA with three strong teams commenced the battle against the strongest from each state.  All WA teams won their first games to progress to the quarter finals.  Here the Guelfi foursome with Phil, Jeff and Robbie came up against a Gary Trick NSW who was in tremendous form and the NSW team won through.  The Cornthwaite foursome  of Paul, Alan and Brett won through to the semi as did Joe's foursome of Darren, Mike and Garry.

Semi Finals saw 2 x NSW and WA teams play off, Joe and his crew blew out the Tricky candle and progressed through to the final convincingly.

Corny and his crew had a very tough game against the Kevin Beatty NSW team, with 2 ends to go were holding three and Kevin killed it. Second last end WA holding one wo win and Kevin drove got the edge of the kitty and it went sideways about 2m to a NSW bowl, extra end here we come.  WA were holding 2 with Alan Booth having a toucher resting on the kitty and his other 1 cm away only 30 cm from the ditch, Kevin played a bomb and got the edge of boothy's bowl to put the kitty in the ditch and his bowl rolled 4 more inches to be shot 8 inches off ditch.  Corny tried to hit alans toucher into the ditch caught edge but rolled once not twice, on his last bowl tried to hit the shot bowl into the ditch and missed by a mm.

Well Joe, Darren, Mike and Garry played in the Final against the Beatty team and in a tough game were they fought back after a few down.  A great team effort by the four of them to come out on top.

Congratulations to Joe Rollnik, Darren Rowlinson, Mike Carey and Garry Rowlinson on being crowned the Fours Champions.

TRIPLES

We had three teams in the triples and due to our form we only had 10 to select from which is a great credit to WA.

Unfortunately two teams lost their first game, our only  winners were Rob Bellis, Trev McGillivray and John Mawson but were unlucky in their next game.

Associate Pairs

Our two groups of Jenni and Peter ROGALSKI and Leslie York / Helen Miskell had an up and down pairs competition.  All four were competitive and tried valiantly but did not finish on the podium of their groups to progress through to the finals.