Isle of Man County Crown Green Bowling Association

The 3R’s Limited Rayner Shield final was held at Castletown Bowling Club on Friday evening, between South Ramsey A and Marown A, with the current top two teams on the Island going head to head, with many neutrals predicting a 4-4 result with the match to be decided on chalks.

As now is commonplace for team finals both captains agreed to do the draw ahead of the match, with a short video of the draw put together to generate a bit of interest. This appeared to pay off with over 120 spectators in attendance to watch events unfold, on a fine evening for bowls with fantastic support for both teams.

First off the green for South Ramsey was captain Glynn Hargraves who was 4-4 early in the game with Sam Clague. Hargraves went on a good run against Clague who scored just one more point as the South Ramsey man changed the mark played every end to win 21-5. Next off to level things up on games was Marown’s top man Colin Kelly who was up against Dido Kelly with the Marown man leading 12-3 in the corners Dido played well to fight back to 11-12, only for another good run from Colin in the corners resulted in a 21-13 win for the Crosby man.

Marown went 2-1 ahead thanks to Dean Kipling who led 14-8 against James Teare, with both players scoring seven chalks each from there this was enough for Kipling to win 21-15. The last match of the first half was a blockbuster of a game between Manx Champion David Bradford and new signing Peter Jones, with the latter being familiar with the Castletown green having played in the Ballacashtal many times over the years. The big difference in this game was Bradford was able to score a double on five occasions, with Jones scoring two doubles Bradford edged home 21-17 in a good quality game. At the half way stage it was 2-2 on games with South Ramsey ahead by just five chalks (69-64).

In the second half of the match the two new South Ramsey players proved their determination to pick up their first Rayner Shield win with their new team as Bob Clark surged into a 13-5 lead against Phil Kelly, Clark performed well on his former home green to win 21-12. Jordan Cain performed brilliantly on the night as he went 20-7 ahead against Neil Withers, with the latter having to play a lot of reaching bowls just to stay in the game. Three quickfire doubles from Withers pulled the score back to 13-20 as he threatened to get a run of ends together. A great last bowl from Cain secured a good 21-13 victory to put South Ramsey 4-2 up on games and 22 chalks ahead (111-89).

The match was effectively over at this point with both of the remaining games for South Ramsey well into double figures, with Peter Collister trailing Paul Kelly 13-14 the South Ramsey man went 16-14 ahead only for Kelly to run out with a 21-16 win as he scored seven chalks over four ends. The last game of the night saw Stefan Kelly who was perhaps the underdog in his game with Marown captain Paul Dunn, yet Kelly put in a good performance playing corner to crown and back to lead 9-3. Dunn responded brilliantly hitting some good strikes as he went into the lead 17-16 by end 28. Kelly kept his composure and refocused to score five consecutive singles to win 21-17, with the result sealing a 5-3 victory (chalks 148-127) for South Ramsey and ultimately proving to be a good confidence boost for Kelly.

The presentation was made by competition committee officer Steve Moore, who thanked Rob Matthews from 3R’s Limited for sponsoring the competition, Castletown Bowling Club for the use of the green and their club members for assisting throughout the evening. Rob Matthews of 3R’s Limited was then introduced to present the Rayner Shield to South Ramsey captain Glynn Hargraves, who offered his commiserations to Marown and congratulated his side for a superb team performance. South Ramsey’s win sees them take their sixth win in the competition, along with retaining the title they picked up last season.

South Ramsey A			Marown A
David Bradford	21	17	Peter Jones
Dido Kelly	12	21	Colin Kelly
Glynn Hargraves	21	5	Sam Clague
James Teare	15	21	Dean Kipling
Bob Clark	21	12	Phil Kelly
Jordan Cain	21	13	Neil Withers
Peter Collister	16	21	Paul Kelly
Stefan Kelly	21	17	Paul Dunn
5 Games Won	148	127	3 Games Won