LAST Saturday Abergavenny Bowls Club welcomed Blaenavon to Avenue Road for their second game in the Welsh (Carruthers) Cup

Qualification to play in the knock out section of the cup was dependant on the result of this game. Fortunately for Abergavenny, in a very close and tense game, they managed to qualify for the next round of the cup by recording a victory by 77 shots to 69. As a result of this victory, Abergavenny will now play at home against a team from the Port Talbot/Aberavon area in the first knock out stage of the competition.

The road to victory was led by the rink of captain Gethin Hill. After scoring four shots on the first end they never allowed their opponents into the game and continued to score heavily, particularly through the third quarter of the game. This enabled them to go on and win by 30 shots to 10. Anthony Moriarty’s rink was behind after eight ends but then turned the situation round to lead by five shots with three ends to play. The Blaenavon rink then managed to gain the five shots necessary to tie the game 17 shots all.

Although the rink of Matthew Vale led by one shot after 15 ends, their opponents then scored more heavily over the final six ends to defeat the Abergavenny rink by 21 shots to 16. Robert Poynter’s rink was 14 shots behind with six ends to play. Over the final ends they managed to dramatically reduce the deficit to finish the game only seven shots behind at 21 shots to 14.

Earlier in the week Crickhowell visited Avenue Road for an EMBA fixture. Both teams won on two rinks but Crickhowell managed to win the game with the better aggregate score of 65 shots to 54 for Abergavenny. The two successful rinks for Abergavenny were those of Matthew Vale and Anthony Moriarty. Anthony Moriarty’s rink was always in control of their game after building an early lead. They went on to win by 20 shots to five. It was much closer on the rink of Matthew Vale but the Abergavenny rink scored heavily over the final three ends to confirm their victory by 22 shots to 12.

Unfortunately the rinks of Bill Belli and Fred Mutimer were never in contention in their games. Both rinks could manage to score points on four ends only and therefore suffered defeats by 27 shots to six and 21 shots to six respectively.

Abergavenny Ladies also played two games in the past week. The first of these was a league fixture against Penyrheol at Avenue Road. Although Abergavenny could win on only one rink of the three, the game was very close throughout with Penryheol just managing to edge the game by 51 shots to 49. The only ring to win for Abergavenny was that of Ceri Clark, who managed to fight back after being behind and then maintain their slender lead until the end to win by 17 shots to 15. Both of the rinks skipped by Wendy Parker and Mary Evans were defeated by two shots, with the final scores being 18 – 20 and 14 – 16 respectively.

The second ladies game was a friendly at Garndiffaith when new members Dawn Kedward and Chris Wengler played their first game for the club and acquitted themselves well on their debut. Abergavenny could win on only one rink but still managed to draw the game 34 shots all. The winning rink was that of Mary Evans, with a comfortable victory by 20 shots to 9. Other rink scores were Judi Belli 6- 13 and Ceri Clark 8 – 12.

This coming week the men play an MBA game at Abertillery and the ladies also play a league game at Panteg House.