Wednesday 9 November South Tweed Sports

It was a blue ribbon third and final day for New South Wales in the Test Series against Queensland. After wrapping up the Open Women’s series and Under 25 Men series on day 2, they completed the quadrella winning the Open Men and Under 25 series in the third and final test. Given this was a home series for Queensland, it was a tremendous effort for the NSW squad on fast greens and under tricky conditions with strong and changing winds.

National team captain Lynsey Armitage ensured it wasn’t a 3-0 sweep of the final test against Queensland with a hard fought draw against Katrina Wright. Armitage never led during the match and trailed 2-9 (7 ends) and 9-18 after a scoreless five ends as they headed to the 18th end. To her team’s credit, over the final four ends they doubled their score of 9 to grind out an 18 all draw. Armitage was later named Queensland’s Open Lady Player of the Series.

A team shuffle had former skip Maria Rigby move to 3 while Christina Pavlov took over at skip but NSW’s Beth Quinlan took this in her stride and her team won by 10 shots. After leading 11-2 early, Quinlan maintained at least a 6 shot margin throughout and finally won 24-14.

Karen Murphy (NSW) and her team kept their unbeaten form in tact with a 9 shot win over Tracy Foster. As with the rinks around her, Murphy led early and kept that lead to the last end. At one stage it was 20-5 (14 ends) but Foster’s team collected 8 shots to give themselves some hope trailing 13-20 (18 ends). It was not to be and Queensland failed to win a rink in the Open Ladies final test as Murphy capped a great 3 days with a 23-14 victory.

Having seen Qld win 5 of the last 6 series, this was no doubt a sweet victory for the NSW ladies. The series is called ‘The Ashes’.

In contrast to the Open Ladies, the Queensland Men actually won 2 rinks to 1 in the 3rd test but the test result hinges on cumulative scores and unfortunately for Qld, the Kerkow and Rice winning margins could not cover the losing margin of Brett Wilkie.

Again contrasting with the Ladies, this Men’s result went to the 63rd and final end. The final match on green was the Wilkie vs Shane Garvey clash. With Kerkow and Rice in the sheds, it was NSW just ahead 63-62 with three ends to play.

With other players milling around watching, Garvey took a single to take NSW to 64-62 (61st end) and to the delight of the crowd, played a weighted shot that cleared an opposition bowl to take a crucial 2 shots and the cumulative lead 66-62 with 1 end to play. This left Wilkie and team the unenviable task of needing 4 shots on the final end to lose his match by 11 but tie the series and as the current shield holders, retain the trophy.

After the leads and seconds had played, NSW held 1 shot and Wilkie was left to call his 3rd Anthony Kiepe for a weighted bowl to trail the kitty to Qld back bowls. Kiepe could not pull it off and as Garvey played safety first, Wilkie’s 1st bowl missed the target as he tried to drive and either put bowl and jack in the ditch or kill the end. Garvey played a safety back bowl and with his last, Wilkie’s weighted delivery again missed the target giving NSW a final shot and an overall margin of 5. Garvey won this match by 16 shots.

Earlier, Nathan Rice trailed his NSW opponent Aron Sherriff for 2/3 of the match and during a run of 11-0 over 5 ends took the lead for the first time. It was 20-14 to Rice after 19 ends. A two to Sherriff revived NSW hopes but Rice’s single at the last produced a Qld rink win by 5 shots.

The host club’s favourite son Kelvin Kerkow won his third straight game and was named Qld Open Men’s Player of the Series. Each time Kerkow looked to jump away from Mat Pietersen, the NSW team bounced back with multiple shots. Although he rarely strung consecutive winning ends together, Pietersen’s 4, 3, 2 and 5 single end wins in the latter stages kept the contest alive. His 5 on the 19th brought his team back on equal terms (22 all, 19 ends) before Kerkow rallied again with closing 3s to win a tight match 28-22.

For the first time in 14 years, the winner (NSW) was not going back-to-back. NSW held the Wal Currey Memorial Trophy from 1997-2002, then Qld (2003-07), NSW (2008-09) and Qld in 2010.

High resolution images available upon request. Day 2 (3rd Test) images available within 24 hours of this email.

THANK YOU to the various media outlets for supporting this terrific event and with the host club, my Club South Tweed Sports.