How The West was won
Queensland rally for early series win over Western Australia Queensland have clinched a hard-fought series win in Western Australia, wrapping up the men’s and women’s trophies with one test to spare.
“It was a great win for both sides,” state coach Bill Cornehls said. “They were two really tight games and they really went down to the wire. We were behind in the women’s match with just two ends to go, but Lynsey Clarke and Tracy Foster played two really big conversion shots to pick up seven and win us the match and the series.
“Alex (Murtagh) also played a huge shot to help keep us in front in the men’s match. Alex was down five in the head, which could have been very bad for us in such a tight game, but he played a perfect conversion to get the shot and keep the momentum in our favour.”
After chalking up an impressive five rink wins to one in the series opener, the visitors came out firing in test two at Perth’s Rossmoyne Bowls Club, determined to stamp out any hope of a WA comeback.
The home side weren’t going down without a fight however, and they raced out to a narrow lead early in the match. After that things got very tight, with the sides going blow for blow throughout the match.
Nathan Rice went down by just one shot to WA’s John Slavich, 15-14, but Brett Wilkie and Alex Murtagh picked up the slack, defeating Anthony Provost and David Rankin 22-17 and 23-19 respectively for a 59-51 Queensland win.
Meanwhile the women also took out their second consecutive test match, with a 2-1 win over the Sandgropers.
Tracy Foster’s rink suffered a damaging loss at the hands of WA’s Lisa Featherby, 25-15, but Lynsey Clarke and Louise Witton came to the rescue.
Clarke edged out Noelene Abe 26-23, but Witton’s girls were the real stars of the show, downing Kathy Gobbart 26-17 to secure the series win for Queensland.
The third and final test has just gotten underway in Perth and despite having bagged both trophies already, Cornehls said his side are determined to make it a clean sweep.
“We won’t be taking our foot off the gas, we want to go home undefeated so we’ll be out to win this final test,” he said.
