Helen Annan, Colin Kelly win SINGLES
2013 State Champion of Club Champions The Master (Helen Annan) and the Apprentice (Kiani Andersen) clashed in the final of the 2013 State Champion of Club Champion women’s singles at Broadbeach today.
The one who looked most likely was Kiani, off to a blistering start, Brett Wilkie in her corner.
As she said herself after the match, she didn’t play a bad bowl.
In fact, she played really, really well, no doubt knocking on the door of a major tournament and she’s still only 20.
However, Deception Bay’s Helen Annan has been on all the swings and roundabouts and her comeback today was proof perfect that it ain’t over until it’s over…
The first half of the match was all Kiani, it looked like it was going to be a rather uneventful final…
But Helen hung in there, no great magic, but she was still there, gnawing rather than snapping at Kiani’s heels.
Just when it looked like Kiani had it all sown up, Helen started to put on points.
The murmur around the green started up and hearts in mouths, the spectators waited to see if Helen could do the unthinkable and wrest the prize off Kiani at the eleventh hour.
And you know how everyone says “That’s bowls!”, well today, that’s what happened.
Helen had already narrowed her losing margin to four bowls, 19-23, and on the next end, when she most needed it, she found herself holding three.
Did she take the safe option, no, she went for four on her last bowl, and got them.
Score 23-23.
Helen got another bowl on the next end, 24-23, on top for the first time in the match.
Would the wily master snatch victory from the apprentice…?
That’s exactly what happened, and delighted as she was to win, part of Helen actually wished Kiani had achieved what she had come so close to doing.
In the final end of the match, Kiani was holding two and she only needed two to win, down 23-24.
Helen bowled her second last bowl and actually shunted another of Kiani’s bowls into the action, giving Kiani a three-bowl advantage, one more than she needed to win.
By now, Kiani must have been tasting the championship, it was so close, as she waited for Helen deliver her final bowl.
What sort of magic Helen conjured into her fingers to plop a bowl right among Kiani’s closest three, and closer than any of them by a few centimetres, not even Helen could say.
“I must have had some help from up there,” Helen said, referring to her beloved husband Bill, who died five years ago.
Helen Annan, 72, is celebrating a inspiring victory tonight.
When she says “I never give up”, you can believe her!
Of course, it was gut-wrenching for Kiani not to win, especially when she had dominated most of the match, she had come so tantalizingly close, and she didn’t choke…
But she knows she played extremely well, as she said, “I didn’t do anything wrong…”
Helen just played the shot of her life and seized the day and everyone was just so happy for her win, while feeling sad for Kiani’s loss.
MEN
Cairns cabinet maker Colin Kelly is celebrating his 41st birthday tomorrow (Friday November 1) and what a fantastic early birthday gift he scored himself at Broadbeach today.
The former Queensland and Australian player doesn’t make himself available for selection these days but he was very happy to see he’s lost none of his ability, defeating Wizz Wilkie in the final round of sectional play 25-17 to go into the final, and taking the final, and the 2013 singles men’s title 25-18 from Hervey Bay’s John Walker, 66, a former State Champion of Club Champion Singles winner in 2007.
