JUNIORS PLAY WELL BUT FORTUNE IS NOT WITH THEM

At Leamington yesterday, in the National Junior Pairs, Nicole and Heather made a fine start as in their first game they overcame Kirsty Richards, the 2017 National Singles Champion and her partner from Warwickshire. Kirsty is already a full international and it showed. Nicole and Heather almost always had more bowls in the head than their opponents but Kirsty regularly retrieved the situation so the result was in doubt for much of the match. Eventually, however, the Oakley girls won 17-11. The next game saw the Oakley duo take on the Forster twins from Cumbria who had earlier put out the 2017 Junior Pairs Champions. Looking for a place in the quarter finals, Oakley were 1-6 down but they soon squared the game which then followed a similar pattern to the first game with Oakley getting more bowls into the head only for the Cumbrian skip to rescue the situation. On many occasions Oakley held 4 or 5 shots but each time a running bowl altered matters. Perhaps the Oakley bowls were too close, perhaps the Cumbrian skip had an inspired game, perhaps fortune was on her side but whatever the reason the girls went down to a 12-14 defeat in a game where they had played very well. They can be very proud of their perfomances.