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Hampshire at the British Isles Team Challenge
Hampshire at the British Isles Team Challenge
As the reigning County Champions, Hampshire were the England representatives at the British
Isles Team Challenge. The long anticipated trip to Newry, Ireland for the Hampshire Premier
Short Mat Bowls team ended with a lot of experience gained, but unfortunately not much in the
way of success or trophies. Newry Sports Hall was the venue, only a short walk away from
the hotel that all the players stayed at.
Always the minnows in a pool of big fish, the Hampshire side – representing England –
were not cowed by the opposition at any point, but a bruising first session against hosts Oriel
seemed to set the tone for the rest of the weekend.
To put the calibre of Hampshire’s opponents in context, Pembrokeshire have won their
Welsh County Championship title 13 times in 23 years and Oriel were looking for back-to-back
wins having won this Top Team Challenge trophy last year in Cheshire. They had also previ-
ously won it in 2005.
The first session started at 9.45 on the Saturday morning and was the normal Inter-County
format (designated “individuals” throughout the tournament) being two singles, two pairs, two
triples and two fours disciplines. The matches were all played at the same time across eight
mats and the closest Hampshire got to points was a 10-14 defeat for Steve Puttock and a
defeat of 11-13 for Jason McLean in the singles. Just about everything the Hampshire players
did was undone by extremely strong and capable Oriel opponents.
Hampshire played in the second session too and in the same “individuals” format, against
Pembrokeshire. Puttock won 14-7, McLean won 19-11, David White & Wendy Ford won 14-13
and Callum Goodman & Leah Wood drew 11-11. Unfortunately the triples and fours both lost
and although the scores were close, overall the match was lost 7-9 on points.
The third session saw Oriel playing Pembroke. Oriel won this match 13 points to 3, losing
one triples match and drawing one singles.
Hampshire returned to the mats to play Oriel in the first of the team event of fours, which
although not realised beforehand was generally considered afterwards to be a lesson in bowling
for Hampshire! It was only the rinks of James Bucknall (skipping Anita Bucknall, Tony Gepp &
Ben Cherry) and Ian Ford (skipping Wendy Ford, Greg Puttock & David White) that picked up
any points at all – the scores being 10-8 and 6-5 respectively.