The Bowls Central Coast Open Side, made up of seven competitors from the Gosford local area, won the prestigious Pat Geary Memorial Trophy for the second time in three years at Coffs Harbour over the weekend of August 2 and 3.
The side was made up of six teams and four players, and was led by Side Captain Michael Stead, melding together the seasoned players with several new players stepping up to this level to produce match winning shots when needed.
The trophy was decided on the last end of the match with the Central Coast needing to win the end to secure overall victory.
Pat Reynolds and Michael Stead steadied the ship to lead the side to victory and relegate Newcastle (Zone 2) to outright third.
In the first game on the Saturday morning the Central Coast side had a fine win by 14 shots over the host North Coast Zone(Zone 14).
In the other encounter Hunter/Manning (Zone 6) secured a surprise 11 shot win over Newcastle (Zone 2).
The second game on Saturday afternoon was against Zone 6 and a team talk before the start of the game confirmed the tactics and game plan.
While the Central Coast lads got away to a good start they faded towards the end of the game to go down by a teasing four shots on the master score board.
This meant that in the final game on the Sunday morning, Central Coast had to beat their old arch rivals Newcastle (Zone 2) and rely upon the winless North Coast (Zone 14) to beat the undefeated Hunter/ Manning (Zone 6) to blow the competition wide open.
The North Coast (Zone 14) did just that by four shots and the Central Coast side lifted to beat their Newcastle foes by 10 shots. The Pat Geary Trophy was down to wins and margins and the Central Coast was declared victors by three shots.
The Central Coast side was the youngest of the four sides involved indicating that the selector’s development strategy and planning is paying dividends.
Having won the Quadrangular series against Newcastle, Illawarra and the ACT in January, the Central Coast side’s sights are now firmly set on the State Inter-Zone Championships at Dubbo in September in an endeavour to make it a “Triple Crown” of victories in 2014.
Bronze medallist Aron Sherriff will back from the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow to lead the Central Coast side in this event.
Chairman of Selectors Dick Love was full of praise for the side’s success and made particular mention of Michael Stead’s excellent leadership and the manner in which his team played under pressure to win the last end and seal overall victory.
The selectors now have the difficult and unenviable task of reducing the number of teams from six to four to represent the Central Coast at the State Inter-Zone Sides Championship at Dubbo.
Media release, 4 Aug 2014
Kevin Dring, Bowls
Central Coast