Growing pains

by admin on June 29, 2014

Queensland’s new-look junior side suffers frustrating string of narrow losses. Baby Blues in driver’s seat following Day 1 victory at annual interstate clash in Brisbane. Queensland’s juniors are on the back foot heading into Day 2 of their annual interstate clash with New South Wales, after a string of narrow losses cost the mini-Maroons their series opener in Brisbane.
“It was tough out there today,” Queensland state coach Bill Cornehls admitted, following a Test 1 defeat for the boys and a narrow draw for the girls at Toombul Bowls Club.
“The green was perfect, but the gusty wind made it really difficult to play consistently.”
However, despite a few cliffhanger and ultimately disappointing results, Cornehls saw plenty of positives in his sides’ performance.
“It was so close, it really could have gone either way. I know people say that a lot, but in this case it’s true. If you look at the results, most games were decided by one or two shots.
“We have quite a few new players in the side and I’ve been really impressed with them, every player in the side played really well.
“Despite losing, we have a lot of positives to take from today and I’ve told the players to just go out tomorrow and keep doing what they’re doing,” Cornehls said.
The Girls
While the boys lost their series opener 1-3, Queensland’s girls scored a moral victory, edging the shot-count 70-68 in their 2-all draw with NSW.
“Because we go on game wins it’s a 2-all draw,” Cornehls said. “But it’s still a bit of a confidence booster for the girls, knowing that overall they scored more shots than NSW.”
April Wilson and Taleah Putney dropped their pairs opener, 17-18, before Wilson suffered an equally narrow loss in the singles, 19-21.
However, Putney didn’t come away completely empty-handed, skipping Sophie Young, Connie-Leigh Rixon and Tiffany Murray to victory in the fours, 17-16.
Young, Rixon and Murray notched up another win in the triples, 17-13, to give Queensland the edge on margins.
The Boys
The boys were less fortunate, dropping three of their four games to give NSW the upper hand heading into Day 2.
The day got off to a heart-breaking start, with Jesse Turnbull and Nic Gosley going down 17-19 in the pairs, while despite some impressive teamwork by skip Hayden Vogler, Jake Rynne (lead) and Mitchell Mears, the boys went down by eight shots to NSW in the triples. 

“It was tough on the boys, both the pairs and the triples dropped a five late in the game and it really cost them,” Cornehls said.
“In the pairs the boys were locked at 11-all when they dropped five on the 14th. In an 18-end game that’s hard to recover from.
“But to their credit, they fought their way back into it and even got in front at one stage, so they should be proud of their efforts.”
There was more pain after the break, with Vogler’s team of Rynne, Turnbull and Mears suffering a one-shot loss 15-16 in the fours.
Gosley denied NSW a clean sweep however, taking out his singles match 21-16 to save some face for the host side.
“The 6-2 score line doesn’t really reflect how close the boys test was,” Cornehls said.
Shots-scored is probably a better indication, and with NSW just scraping by 69-63, you can see just how tight this contest was.
Test 2 kicks off at Toombul Bowls Club at 8.45am tomorrow.