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Bowls: Mighty Featherstone lead way in national qualifiers
Tony Horobin.
It’s that time of the year when the very best in the county manage to reach that little bit further than the rest of us as they secure their spot in the English Indoor Bowling Association national finals at Nottingham.
With nine major competitions available to the male bowler, with age limits in play for some of those, February proves to be a busy time that leads into a lull before the season finally explodes into life with the start of the outdoor season in April.
Featherstone, as is their way, have dominated the roll call of national finals qualifiers once again this year. The names might have changed in some cases, yet they have proven once more that there really isn’t the class in the county to match them in the knockout, individual or smaller rink games.
John Webster is the club’s qualifier through the district in the singles event at Nottingham.
Webster, who plays alongside brother Nathan and team-mates John Whiteley and Jeff Normanton for Alverthorpe outdoors, saw off the challenge of county under-25 bowler Adam Liddell (21-19) in the final qualifying round of area four.
He beat fellow nationals qualifier Stan Thompson in the early stages before taking out the old stager, Eddie Howcroft and Whiteley.
Liddell had a storming run to the final round, beating fellow York bowlers Mark Clarke and David Attwood before having the narrowest of wins, 21-20, against Mark Hughes.
The pairs competition was settled with an all-Featherstone regional tie, with Tony Horobin, and Thompson seeing off Whiteley and Normanton 18-15.
Horobin and Thompson had to come from the first round back in October to secure their place in the finals in April and also saw off the pair skipped by Hughes, 21-20.
Whiteley and Normanton beat David Attwood and Paul Humphreys in their semi-final.
The triples competition is still in progress with the final qualifier once again to be decided by two Featherstone rinks.
Whiteley will be keen to secure his place in the nationals once more, this time as he comes up against the rink of Craig Newton.
Both had a single-shot victory en route to the final qualifier. Newton’s team beat Hughes’ trio 19-18 while Whiteley’s team overcame J Moulds’ threesome by the same score.
Newton is also in the running to qualify in the Area Fours, facing York’s David Stroughair’s quartet in the final section.
Newton’s rink has enjoyed fair passage to the final two – winning their games 26-15, 17-8 (against Howcroft) and 19-7 (against John Walker’s York rink).
Stroughair’s quartet survived one close game, a 21-20 win against the quartet of A Cook.
Flush
A win for Newton will make for the full flush for Featherstone in the top four national competitions this winter.
Hughes will undoubtedly be disappointed with the way his national campaign has gone this season.
Having moved from Leeds to Featherstone, he will have been looking to build on his under-25 performances at national and area level to get to Nottingham in the senior events.
His record in the big four ended up as a 21-20 loss in the singles, 21-20 in the pairs, 19-18 in the triples and 18-15 in the fours.
However, it is only a matter of time before Hughes shows he can dominate the national qualifiers in the way that Whiteley – the only Yorkshire bowler in the top 100 ranked national final qualifiers – has.
All it will take is that one game, one reversal of a one-shot loss and he’ll be booking a fair amount of accommodation in Nottingham in the years to come.
There have already been three national competitions played out to this stage.
Hughes lost both sets in the under-25 finals at the end of last month. He went down in the first round in a competition that also saw England Commonwealth Games bowler Sam Tolchard miss out after losing in the semi-final.
In the over 50/60 age groups, both the over-60 fours and over-50 triples reached a conclusion last week.
The Featherstone four of Ken Griffiths, Andy Lockwood, David Colbourne and Horobin bowed out 18-17 in the first round.
At the same time the over-50 triples of Graham Brooke, Paul Mooring and Stroughair had a great run in their competition before losing in the final to a triple from Beccles, Suffolk.
The main action gets under way in Nottingham from Thursday March 29. By that time we will be reporting on the first action in the West Riding cup, but we’ll still find time to tie up all the loose ends – to hopefully celebrate our winners as they return from Nottingham, just in time for the start of the new crown season.
* The picture is still no clearer in terms of the Yorkshire County league, with a couple of results still outstanding from the last round of action.
The league still has Leeds at the foot of the table without registering their recent 12-6 win over Doncaster.
The victory would only be enough to edge the side above Ryedale, who would themselves only need no worse than a 12-6 defeat to keep Leeds below them.
Leeds play North Cave this weekend.
The side from the eastern half of the county need to beat Leeds 14-4 to go above Harrogate as the league moves towards its final weekend of action.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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