THEY went into the weekend as one of the
pre-tournament favourites and the experienced duo of Dave Quigley and Peter Watts from Young lived up to expectations, taking out the 2012 staging of the South West Pairs bowls competition at the Cootamundra Country Club on the weekend.
Quigley and Watts were one of just three of the 56 teams to emerge from the two days of battle with a perfect record of five wins from as many games, with the accumulative margin of +54 shots seeing them edge out the fast-finishing team of Tom Apps and Rod Jones of Harden on five wins +50.
Phil Murray and Graeme Henderson from Yass also enjoyed a faultless weekend to finish third on five wins +36, while highlighting how popular the annual event is, other money winners stemmed from Newcastle, Temora, Belconnen and Stockinbingal.
And while the $3000 prizemoney on offer is enough to lure the capacity field to Coota every January, it’s not the sole reason, as so eloquently put by Quigley during his acceptance speech.
“I’d like to thank everyone associated with the weekend and congratulate them on its success,” Quigley said.
“It’s tournaments like these that can forge
friendships that last forever and that is evident this weekend as a lot of good mates catch up with each other again.”
The eventual winners opened their campaign with an impressive +19 win over Doug Freer and Les Murphy of Boorowa before downing host club pair Eric Thorburn and David Bateup by 12 in game two.
An eight-shot victory against Ross Johnson (Newcastle) and Paul Cockram (Coota Ex) saw Quigley finish their day one commitments with three wins and a margin of 39 to be one of six sides to sleep on a perfect record.
Six became three after the first game on Sunday morning, with Quigley and Watts adding 11 to their tally with victory over Rod Tonkin and Gary Ryan from Belconnen.
Temora’s Bill Robertson and Bruce Lack were also four from four heading into the final round and appeared the biggest threat to the Young pairing, however when they suffered a shock defeat in game five, it left just three teams in the hunt.
Quigley and Watts had to work overtime to
overcome Neville Stubbs and Eddie Jarrott claiming the last two ends to win by four shots and keep
them in the box seat for the major slice of the
prizemoney.
Apps and Jones finished with a flurry, adding 25 shots to their total in the final game against Ross Foran and Cameron McKenzie from Bronte to finish just four shy of the winner’s total.
In earlier games Apps and Jones defeated Jim Deacon and Steve Larsen (Stock) by three, Graeme Dennis and Michael Bales (Composite side) by six, Barry Bush and Jason Dukes (Yass ) by 13 and Richard Smith and Graham Davidson (Coota Country) by 13.
Bob New was the most successful local player, teaming with good mate Mick Gibbons from Newcastle to finish with four and a half wins and a margin of 30, while Robertson and Lack held on for fifth on four wins + 35 and another Yass
combination, John Bruce and Robert Cocoran
finished sixth with four wins +26.
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