Triples honours for Aussie men on day one
The Australian men’s triples combination of Wayne Ruediger, Nathan Rice and Matt Flapper will sleep well after day one of competition at the XX Commonwealth Games in Glasgow with two impressive victories in their opening two rounds. While the three Aussie men enjoyed the spoils of two wins, the women’s fours team of Carla Odgers, Natasha Scott, Lynsey Clark and Karen Murphy fell agonisingly close to also claiming two wins for the day after losing their 2nd round match to Jersey by one shot. Our men’s triples team were never really headed in a match that they seemingly had a tight hold on throughout and in the end recorded a clinical and one-sided victory 23-5 against the Falkland Islands represented by Patrick Morrison, Barry Ford and Michael Reive. “It was a good solid team performance with all three boys playing their part,” Assistant coach Robbie Dobbins said. The Aussies claimed 13 of the 18 ends played including nine in a row between ends six and 14 and then the final three ends to storm home. “It has been good in terms of development for the boys after a difficult first half of the match in round 1. I couldn’t be more pleased. “We know the standard we can play, and that was pleasing out there today,” Dobbins said. In the second women’s fours match on day 1, the Australian girls fronted up to Jersey’s Chris Grimes, Katie Nixon, Susan Noel, and Alison Camacho and started brilliantly taking a five shot lead after the first three ends. Then the match change complexion entirely and the Jersey outfit comprising a nice blend of youth and experience, with ages spanning from the 31-year-old Nixon to the experienced 66-year-old Noel, took the next four ends before Australia levelled the match at 8-8 after nine. In a ding dong battle, Jersey edged ahead of the Jackaroos when the match reached a clutch moment with the Aussies down 11-14 with two ends to play. Australia picked up one on the penultimate end to take it to 12-14 which set the scene for a thrilling finish and with Australia looking for multiple on the final end, only one shot was there for the taking and a narrow defeat resulted. The final score was 13-14 despite Australian winning one more end than their opponents throughout. “Not what we wanted, but that’s the nature of a Commonwealth Games,” National coach Steve Glasson said. “We have to be really on our game now for the rest of the pool matches and can’t afford to play less than our best. “It’s a tough pool the women’s fours find themselves in with hometown favourites Scotland and also with Jersey, Papua New Guinea and the Cook Islands. “We have the bye next and then come up against the ladies from the Cook Islands so we’ll move on pretty quickly from this one and we’ll bounce back,” a defiant Glasson said. Just like the late afternoon matches on day 1 which provided a mixed bag of results, so too did the evening session which featured St Johns Park’s Kelsey Cottrell up against Zambia’s 54-year-old singles representative Matimba Like. Like, who says her motivation to play bowls is due to her finding it both mentally stimulating and relaxing at the same time, claimed a narrow 21-19 victory against her more fancied Australian opponent surprising many in the grandstands at Kelvingrove on day one. Cottrell stared imposing deficits at several times including 0-4, 3-9, & 5-12 before she settled into her rhythm late in the match but it came all too late for the world champion. Everything Cottrell threw at her opponent was met with an incredible reply. Down 8-12 after 15, Cottrell played a blinder of an end to narrowly miss the full count, but picked up 3 to almost level the match. From there it was all Cottrell with her opponent unable to withstand the barrage of shots with Cottrell peppering the Jack with regularity. That was until the last two ends where her opponent scored multiples to claim victory. “Quite a difficult match with Kelsey unable to really trouble the scorer when it mattered but I knew it was only a …
