By Ian Milgate
Saturday was the start of the 2023/24 Pennant Season with Healesville Bowling Club’s first match being against their old rival Warburton at Warburton.
Over the years, the two clubs have had some great matches, which are always played in the spirit of the game.
This year their Saturday’s first side looked a lot different from last year as people have moved on, giving some of Healesville’s Team 2 players the opportunity to step up and show what they can do.
In fact, Healesville also has a B&F voting system this year whereby each player does a 3,2,1 votes, for the players in their rink and the votes will be tallied up at the end of the Pennant season for the Ron Paterson Trophy.
The club also has a ‘rink of the round’ for the best scoring rink and it went to Steve Graham’s rink who won by 17 shots this week.
Each player received an engraved pen for their efforts.
Healesville won bragging rights in the first round of the season beating Warburton by 52 shots 102 to 50.
Steve Graham, Rob Broadhurst, Chris Hawting, Ian Milgate 25 – 8
Adrian Beales, Effie Laban, Bob Brown, Gerda Otto 20 -18
John Clark, Steve Bulled, John Fitzpatrick, John Howard 29 -12
Mark Ward, Colin Lowe, Robyn Turville, Rob Ayres 28 -12
There were some outstanding performances by players including Steve Graham, John Clark, Steve Bulled, John Fitzpatrick, Gerda Otto to name a few.
Healesville’s Team 2 had a bye for the first game of the season and are looking forward to playing Upwey-Tecoma on their turf next week.
Tuesday Pennant kicks off on the 24 October with Team 1 away at Mooroolbark and Team 2 at home to Eastwood.
Corporate Bowls starts on Wednesday 25 October.
Anyone is welcome to come on down, meet the locals and have one of the famous snags in bread.
