Eden hushed any doubters when its ladies Drakes Pride super sixes squad made a spot in the semi-finals last week.
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With the semis and grand finals played at Tathra on Sunday, it was the Drakes Pride development squad stealing the show in the men’s division.
With just five teams in contention, the highly favoured Merimbula Dolphins booked a grand final spot after topping the ladies ladder.
To make a grand final berth, the Eden women had to overcome the Tura Tornadoes.
In what was one of the matches of the season, the Eden fairytale looked to be well and truly alive as they took an early lead.
With a third consecutive Tura premiership under threat, the Tornadoes found top gear to win by just four shots.
Eden’s Robyn Symonds said the team was delighted with the close finish after taking on the larger clubs.
“We were very pleased with our play ... we only lost by four shots in the semi final,” Symonds said.
“And the team we lost to were the outright winners.”
Symonds said it was an excellent opportunity to have some play north of home as Eden is commonly regarded as having “slow” greens.
Adapting to the rinks around the region proved a challenge for the squad, but Symonds said it helped improve their skills and will pay dividends in upcoming pennant play.
“In a way, we know we’re coming up against some much stronger players so it makes us try a bit harder,” Symonds said with a laugh.
The development squad first qualified for the grand final after taking an upset win over the favoured Bega Devils squad.
Both the Eden ladies and men’s development team were new additions to the competition this year.
The development team is a combination of experienced bowlers paired with some of the up-and-coming talent.
Lachlan Gordon had a come-from-behind win over Bega club champion Robert Stahmer in the singles to forge the win in the semi-finals.
“I think we could all agree if he didn’t play such a great game of singles we would not have made the final,” coach James Reynolds said during the presentations.
The Tura Beach pairing of Scott Pettit and Stephen Greig matched Howard Blacker and Augie Philipzen shot-for-shot to have a level score in the pairs, while Dylan Cuthbert led Greg Mallard and Ricky Holt to a narrow lead in the triples.
On the other rink, the Merimbula All Stars put a 10-shot win over the Tura Sharks to secure their berth in the grand final.
Mallard took over the role of singles, while Josh Hammond slotted to lead in the triples and Gordon was relegated to the reserve role.
Organisers declared the final a one-shot win in favour of the development squad after an extremely tense final end.
The singles and triples had finished their matches, narrowly in favour of the development squad.
It was left up to the pairs between the Tura Beach combination against Merimbula’s Wayne Taylor and Dave Shortal.
Greig had set up a match-winning head and Pettit was following it up neatly for the duo to hold three shots.
However, with his second to last shot, Taylor slammed the jack in the hopes of putting it in the gutter, but inevitably killed the end.
As the end was reset, it was a tense moment for their coach.
“It was nerve-wracking,” Reynolds said.
If the All Stars scored two shots to score a tie, they would have won on points.
Taylor lined up for the last time and drove at the end, but missed the jack narrowly and was left to rue in the runner-up spot.
Symonds said she was delighted for an Eden squad to take part and would likely enter again next year.
“Merimbula and Tura Beach are the main women’s clubs, so being a small group we just decided to see what we could do,” Symonds said.
“It’s a very good venue for our ladies to be included in because it improves their bowls and thank you to Michael Wilks for organising it.”
For now Symonds has a strong love of the game.
“Back when I was president I would always say it doesn’t matter even if you’re 80 - you can beat a 20 year old in green bowling,” she said with a laugh.