Rooko’s AO encounter
North Toowoomba bowler Peter ‘Rooko’ Rookas shares his first taste of the Australian Open with the Bowler staff.
You may have seen one of the articles North Toowoomba bowler Peter ‘Rooko’ Rookas has contributed the Bowler over the past year. As a relatively new convert to the sport of bowls he had not had the chance to play in the Australian Open before, so he decided to give it a go this year. Rooko shared his first taste of the Australian Open with the Bowler staff.
“I must say I enjoyed my first foray into the Australian Open scene at the Gold Coast, I have to tell you a funny story though…
I turned up at Helensvale for my first round sectional play, it was the first time I’d played singles as I missed the club championships last year and I’ve only been bowling for two years.
I didn’t look at who I was playing first as I was excited just to be there.
I led the fellow I played first up, 4-0 after two ends and then 12-11 halfway through, he then started to ‘fire’ & picked me off not once but twice when I was on the kitty for three shots each time!
I thought to myself ‘lucky b@1&%$^’, needless to say, he won the game 21-12 but I was still pleased with the game as it wasn’t a bad result for a first up attempt.
The marker, who introduced himself only as Anthony at the start of play said to me afterwards that he was a former Toowoomba boy & our Dads knew each other.
Turned out it was Anthony Keipe, I said ‘b@#$%^ hell, you’re a Queensland player & one of the best, what are you doing marking my card.
He said ‘don’t worry about me, do you know who you have just played??’
I said ‘no, but he was a nice fellow named Ryan and he had a different accent.
You guessed it, it was Ryan Bester!
I apologised profusely to Ryan afterwards, saying I didn’t have a clue who I was playing, we had a great laugh about it over a drink & now we’re mates on Facebook.
Ryan’s invited me to come down to a few of the Broadbeach Bowls carnivals he organises, and boy, have I got some mileage out of the story after Ryan ended up winning the AO title!”
