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February 28, 2008

A report from a contact at Dalkeith-Nedlands is as follows:

Dalkieth Nedlands 93 (8) v Thornlie 63 (0)

On a beautiful and balmy Friday evening, away from the heat of the day, with the worst of the Fremantle doctor gone, on a very fine green with an appreciative crowd, food and drink aplenty, the Silvertails recorded their first clean sweep for the year against a very game Thornlie. The Ravens had fixed up the Silvery’s at the nest in mid week pennants and so it was revenge of some note for Dalkieth.

The important thing to come out of the game was this. The game was played on a Friday evening, it started at half past four, it finished in the light, the ambient temperature was 22 degrees, magnificently comfortable for the players and a large crowd that came to watch, including the lower division players and those who would normally not be able to see the top side play and other members that would ordinarily sit in the club house on a Friday evening. The atmosphere was brilliant and all players commented that it was a shame it did not happen more often. Well it should.

We live in one of the hottest countries in the world, the third windiest city in the world, with the highest rate of skin cancer in the world and in the hottest and windiest part of the year we play this game in the hottest and windiest part of the day. I mean try and explain that to any normal rational person.

It’s bad enough normally but with daylight saving it becomes even worse, start at one o’clock and finish at four. Look at he arms and faces of some of the old diggers that have played the game for some time and see what an Australian sun can do. All the above said, the real joy of the evening was being able to go into a cool club house for a refreshing drink rather than getting into a stinking hot clubhouse, hot and sweaty at 5 o’clock and try to get some relief. As Sam Kekovich would say “You know it makes sense”.

Another things that flowed from the Friday night match was the Silvertails had the weekend off so they were able to watch some of the other divisions play and it gaves a much needed break to many a family man.

The Duke v Glynn Vaughan 20/18

The Duke started like a man on fire, had ice cold water, no liquid nitrogen, thrown over him at the tenth end and managed to thaw out and ignite briefly but brilliantly for the final delivery of the evening.
Like so many times in the past when the Duke is cold he’s hot and when he warms up he cools down alarmingly. The Duke turned up late, was only able to have a one way roll up and then got off to a flyer - like an 11/0 start.
When he should have been winding up for the killer run home it was like the scene from Terminator II where the truck full of liquid hydrogen cracks in two and instead of Chrome man, aka Terminator II, aka Robert Patrick, aka T1000 copping the lot it was the Duck, aka the Duke, aka Peter Basich that takes a nitrogen shower. From ends 10 through to 20 and a half it looked like a severe stoke victim learning to talk again such was the performance of the Duke. He might as well kicked them.

Vaughany and the boys rallied and on the last end, having leveled at 18 all, the Duke crossed over three down. The Mad Dog officially went on the record and stated to the Cleaver that the chances of the Duck rescuing them were nil. The first attempt to draw by the Duck saw the bowl sail two meters wide and land in the ditch.
The Dog gave the “I told you so” look at the Cleaver. Vaughany draws another. The Duck, to a packed crowd, all about as confident as the Dog, then plays the monster to trail the jack for two. The noise started from the time the ball was half way and, as the impossible began to look possible, avalanched, culminating in the biggest roar heard at Dalkieth, since the Krackerjack last bought a drink.
Everyone went mad. The impossible had occurred. A miracle. Just goes to show, you judge a persons game by all 42 bowls because you never know when they are going to play the bowl that saves you. All the same the Dog and the Cleaver only gave the Duke a 2 on the voting slips for scaring the shit out of them like that.

Perfect Peter Gason was the player of the night and played a top game as lead, considering he was carrying a bit extra weight, in the form of a tumor, which was surgically removed the following week. The Dog and the Cleaver did their bit but the Dog was distracted as another of his new hats had gone missing. The Duke just keeps giving us headaches.

The Bomb v Greg “Ray Gun” 22/12

Another great win for the Bomb against a very good Thornlie unit. The star of the show however was the Saint. As the crowd built up and the polite applause began turn into cheering, and the cheering grew louder the Saint, even by the extravagant standards he has set this year, went totally berserk.

When Barry Richards smashed 325 in a day at the WACA in the very early 70’s, such was the incandescence of the display, no one noticed Ian Chappell at the other end carve out a very fine 118. It was the same here. It made no difference what was happening on the other rinks, it made no difference what was happening on that rink, there could have been a murder, the Saint was centre stage and everyone else was a bit player.

As someone commented, “If he does this in front of 60 people what was he like in front of 60,000”? Well 35 Brownlow votes in two years is what he was like. It was phenomenal stuff.

The Big Bloke followed up his Friday night fireworks by winning the Club mixed pairs on Sunday with his missus, Gwenda, who has been playing all of ten minutes. Not short of talent herself she’s packed a bit into the ten minutes and played brilliantly.
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-------------------------------------The Saints missus:
“Right where are we - bowls, measure, chalk, lippy. Great, all ready to go.

The Saint beat up the Stallion who was partnered by Mrs. Moss. Not sure how many times a Runner up in the Brownlow medal, has played the mother of a Brownlow medalist in a final of a Club Championship bowls event.

Mrs. Moss who is nearly 90 paid tribute to the Stallion afterwards. “That young Vincent is such a very sweet nice young boy, so kind to have given up his weekend to play with me and he was such fun to play with - but he calls the head like a bloody galah and drives at shadows”.
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--------------What Mrs. Moss sees when the Stallion is at the head.

Anyway back to a certain pennant game. I’m sure all the other guys played well, and the Bomb skippered well, but no one really noticed. I assume they all made 118.

The Gypsy v Paul Pohe 22/15


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------------------The Gypsy with another, different stolen hat

When the Dog rang the Gypsy to find out what had happened in the game the Gypsy said he had no idea. “Arm @!!X#@ if I can remember, I was too pissed. I’d been at lunch all day”. “Ring the other guys”, was his instruction.

He said he was pretty sure however that he was brilliant and carried the other guys. The Beekeeper said that was bullshit and it was he who played the game of his life to secure the win. Rowdy said that the Gypsy may have been liberal with the truth and the Beekeepers may have over stated his performance and overlooked the fact that it was he who played most of the match winning bowls.
The Trolley when asked what happened during the game and who were the better players said “It’s a long time between leap years”. The Dog stared at the mouth piece of the phone for several minutes before slowly hanging up. Anyway the good news was that they won.

The Krackerjack v “Diamond” Jim McKenzie 29/18.

The reason the match was played on Friday was because Diamond had won the over 60’s State triples and was off to the Australian Open. No one could play on a Sunday so the decision to play it Friday evening was a bit serendipitous.

South Perth played Cockburn at a similar time the following week and it was interesting to not only see the size of the crowd but the various playing personnel from other clubs in attendance, Neville and Helen Stephens, “Bad Hair Day” Mat Mitchell, Peter Sardelic, the Krackerjack and John “the Moose” Morss to name a few. Wouldn’t it be good if we variously played some games on Friday evening, some games on Saturday afternoon and some games on Saturday evenings?

The Krackerjack under extreme provocation from Diamond, (well the Diamond had after all beaten him) had fatally kicked the Dog in their last mid week encounter. The Kracker did not know whether to hold it against Diamond or thank him. Either way the Kracker squared up on Friday night.

With the Big Banana playing his last game with the Kracker, (he looked like one of those old Roman films with the chariot race where the wheels on the battered chariot are about to fall off), the Stallion making his debut at two, and the Rulebook leading brilliantly, they did it on the bit.
The Stallion was given a pre-match pep talk by the Krackerjack which went along the lines of everything that the Stallion may have heard about the Kracker was bullshit, they were just lies designed to hurt him, he was not as bad as people said and if the Stallion did exactly what he was told he would not get hurt. “Yeh that’s fine…” began the Stallion. “CRACK” – backhander from the Kracker. “Don’t #@@#x!@ answer back you impotent wog bastard”. (We are pretty sure he meant impudent)

In his debut game with the Kracker the Stallion was subdued and before every delivery he would wipe the trickle of blood coming from the side of his mouth with the back of his hand. It only stopped bleeding on the last end. The Rulebook played very well but the finish line could not come quickly enough for the Banana. Later he was asked if he believed there was a God. He said he didn’t, but he believed there was a Devil.

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------------The Banana’s contemplates life without the Krackerjack

Later that evening, as they were celebrating with a few beers, and the pain in the side of his mouth had worn off, the Stallion told a very funny joke at the Krackerjack’s expense. Everyone rolled around on the ground in hysterics and even the Kracker thought it was very funny.

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---------------------The Kracker in hysterics over the Stallion joke

Ten minutes later the Stallion was seen with the blood coming from the other side of his mouth.