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December 5, 2008
Episode five OSBORNE PARK
The Silvertails v OsbornePark 59/108
Full of hope and optimism the Silvertails travelled to the Park to take on the reigning WABA and Australasian pennant champions and they knew, like they really knew, after a couple of close losses, they were a real chance..
In history that reckless optimism can in part be matched by the story of the 1989 Libyan attack on the aircraft carrier the USS Nimitz.
Death Star – ditch to ditch 500m
The Nimitz was the equivalent of a death star, with its own economy and had more weaponry and technology than any African country. At that time Mohamah Gadaffi, the then, and still, president of Libya, ordered two of his fighter planes, two MIG 23’s (yes that’s right two MIG’s which would then make it “Multiple Miggs” as in “Silence of the Lambs”) to fly out into the Gulf of Sidra to aggravate the US. Not sure what they intended to do, swoop the tower like Maverick and Goose in Top Gun, but at any rate, at the time the US sense of humor was on a par with the Kracker crossing over six down with plenty of blockers on both hands.
With radar and satellite the Nimitz saw the bogies coming and immediately scrambled two F14 Tomcats, armed with Sidewinder and Sparrow air to air missiles.
Tom Cat
Once airborne they punched in the relevant coordinates and fired off the Sidewinders. They were back on the deck of the Nimitz drinking coffee and reading stick books about two minutes later.
Meanwhile 80 mile away the MIG pilots hurtled toward their fate.
A MIG 23 travels at about 1,500 mph and a sidewinder missile travels at around 2,600 mph. At some point, very shortly thereafter, the closing speed of 4,100 mph became the impact speed. Now at that speed a plane could run into one of Billy Galloway’s old brown bowling shoes and still be completely obliterated.
Remember the Space shuttle Columbia had a hole whacked in the leading edge of one of its reinforced carbon-carbon wings by a piece of foam no bigger than a brief case, and up until that point reinforced carbon-carbon was believed to be indestructible.
So the 200kg sidewinder was overdoing it just a bit. The explosive in the missile we can only assume was for comedy effect, overkill and/or to take the piss. Apparently the Libyan government were able to immediately undertake a very successful salvage operation and was able to present to one of the grieving widow’s the entire contents of the salvage operation, a tiny bit of material that may or may not have been part of a chin strap, to commemorate her husband’s contribution and bad luck.
That story is of significance because those poor Libyan bastards still had more chance than the Silvertails did last Saturday.
In short, you don’t f#@#k around with a Superpower and expect to emerge unscathed. The Silvertails did, did and didn’t.
The Mongoose v the David Rankin File 9/19
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------------------------------------The Mongoose
This game was a beauty and don’t let the score fool you. One man single handed did the damage – the File. It came as no surprise to the Mad Dog who had watched the File do exactly the same to the Gypsy at the Super sevens last year.
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---------------------------------The “Rankin File” smile
The Gypsy didn’t play too badly on that occasion but not playing too badly is a lot different to putting on a show. The Dalkeith boys all played well and on five occasions when holding multiples, the File killed. He can draw a bit as well.
After the fifth end the Mongoose, as every good skipper should do, took his team to one side, John McIntosh, John O’Meehan and John McCormack to have a quick steadying chat. Rarely has a skipper in premier division taken to one side a team whose combined age is ten times more than his own.
They all played well as did the Mongoose but the other Ozzy Park boys were just as good including Robbie “Chief Wiggam” Lawrence but the File was untouchable.
Robbie Lawrence
The Bomb v Mr Tammin. 16/27
Don’t let the score fool you; this was also a good tight game at one stage the scores were locked at 15 apiece. It was just over the last few ends that Mr Tammin and his boys pulled away.
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The dryish westerly dried out eyes and noses. “Mr Tammin has a go at a nasty bogie, with a conveniently jagged thumb hang nail that he was lucky enough to procure in a fencing accident on the farm last week.
Rulebook Ross McKenzie in his comeback game played very well as did the Cleaver but Mr Tammin had the answers at the tail end of the game when it counted.
Graham Evans may or may not have played well, its just he drew your attention to all of his good ones by running down the green and flapping the wings like a big pink flamingo. Come to think of it he ran and flapped after all of Kingy’s and the General’s as well.
The Kracker v Guts 18/28
Don’t let the score fool you; it was closer than it looked.
The strength of this Park team can be seen when “old brown shoes” Billy Galloway is playing at two. And not just playing at two, according to Ian Payne he is the rock solid, lay down mazaire, daylight second, best two in the State and no one bothered to challenge him on the statement and Brown Shoes set about proving it.
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--------------------Old Brown Shoes --------------------------Old Blue Eyes
Ian Payne has had an extraordinary start to the season and he drew and whacked all day.
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Another drive with some “Payne pain” attached. Ian, how in Gods name did that go straight??
The Krackerjack was good all day and went head to head with Guts in what was a fascinating contest. Down 12/3 the Kracker, with the first inkling of assistance from his team, got the team back in it with some great shots, some great saves and some unusual Gut’s generosity to lead 14/13.
Then at 14/18 Guts face cut in a wide bowl from 3 feet wide when four down to get to 19/14 and the Kracker filled up the best part of the ditch with spew.
It was however the shot that curtailed the Silvertail’s momentum. Vaughan Colley broke even with Richard Cox, Rowdy had his work cut out trying to contain the best two in the state, and the Mad Dog had to contend with Ian Payne who again was very good, illustrated best on the last end when he went the very wide hand to steal the Dogs resting toucher and trail it one foot into a nest of Ozzy Park bowls on the ditch. Prick!
John Goddard, still yet to fulfill his potential and one of bowls great underachievers keeps both of his Rosenthal medals in his bowls bag to remind himself of the ones he hasn’t won. It was only a few years ago that Guts, in order to punish himself for missing out on that years Rosenthal tried to fry himself with 50,000 volts.
Luckily one of his off-siders was down wind and caught the scent of cooking flesh and was able to cut the power leaving Guts medium rare and still alive rather than overcooked, crispy and dead as was his intention. He tells me he is a great admirer of of Willy Tan.
The westerly also dried out Gut’s snout and he also had to go after a crispy enemy bogie as well. Weapon of choice – thumb nail again.
The real weakness of this team is Richard Cox who is the Park green keeper and as everyone knows green keepers, such as Jeff Hall, Daniel Brown, Luke Richardson, Lance Strahan, Mark Lindsay etc just can not play the game. If your so called weakest link is the green keeper what chance do you have!!
The Gypsy v Kevin “The Human Yak” Pickering 34/16
Now don’t let the score fool you, this was a massacre! The Yak and his team completely dismantled the Gypsy.
The Yak attacks
The Gypsy only had himself to blame. On Wednesday the Duke called for a formal practice session. He said that he expected the Park to spark up their greens and we were going to have a very concentrated draw practice session.
The Gypsy asked what we were playing for. When he was told there was no money involved he picked up his bowls and went to the bar for a sulk. When the Stallion, the Gypsy’s three, arrived later the Gypsy talked him out of draw practice and into doing an hour of driving at a bare jack and under no circumstances were they to draw.
On the Friday the Stallion turned up again for another hour of driving practice. Little wonder the pair of them could not get within 2 meters of the jack on Saturday.
The score was blown out so far that Fred Diguseppi was having to draw the numbers on the scoreboard with chalk coz he had run out of numbers. Down 34/4 it was not just a matter that the Gypsy’s team were playing badly it was also the case that the Yaks team of Colin Fleahy, Fred DiGuiseppe and Bob “the Trooper” Couper were playing out of their tree.
Colin Fleay in particular was outstanding prompting the Gypsy to announce that he had previously thought that “this man could not play” but he has now officially changed his opinion. The Yak however was brutal and his draw bowling reflective of a man who is, in all likelihood, the best draw bowler in the country – that is the parched bits in between Perth and the big towns’ country and not the entire nation country.
The Gypsy and the family picked up 12 shots in the last three ends including a six on the last end to put a little respectability into the scoreboard but it was a massacre.
To the Gypsy’s credit he played well but when your constantly down to he tune of three and four every time you it the mat and the three or four are all within 6- 8 inches on a windy 17 seconder you are, quite simply, if your not in the class of Steve Glasson, your in the class of deep shit. And even if you were in the class of Big Red, even then you still would not have won.
The Beekeeper, who had shone at practice posting one of the great draw bowling scores of all time, left his form on the 14 second Dalkeith green. As the Gypsy later commented, “Oprah Winfreys got better weight control”.
Indicative of Willy Tan’s proud samurai, heritage and his game, he was found in the car park with his head behind the wheel of a parked car. Apparently he had been trying to kill himself for the previous 40 minutes but in his eagerness was actually placing his head in front of the front wheels, and the patrons were simply reversing out leaving him laying crossways at the front of the car parking bay. Apparently he had attempted to kill himself five or six times in this manner but still hadn’t worked out what was going wrong. All he could scream in his distress was, “Car go long way, car go long way”. It goes without saying that he was hog tied and heavily sedated.
The Stallion was appalling. It was like watching one of the Appealathon kids try to play. And yet the very next day, skippering in the club triples, he had a blinder.
Had Dick Pound of the International Drug Agency been around he would have had a catheter down the end of the Stallions cock before you could say “Marion Jones”.
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The Stallion gives Dick Pound an idea of how long the catheter would need to be
But the Stallion is a horse and so the stewards were called because on the Saturday he competed as a grey, but the following day pranced around the Dalkeith greens as a jet black taking our minds back to the Fine Cotton/Bold Personality fix and arousing suspicions that Hayden Haitana and Robbie Waterhouse may have organized a ring in.
Works out the Stallion had grown tired of the Gunsynd grey mane and had decided to whack in some Black Knight ebony. Wouldn’t let me take a photo though, vain, fancy, poofter bastard.
The loss was a great wake up call and a case in point that the difference between the good sides and the also rans may only be two bowls per game by each player but those two bowls can quite easily and quickly represent 10 – 15 shots on the scoreboard, 50 if you’re the Gypsy.
Ozzy Park were simply to good, to consistent and too classy but the closeness of three of the games and the performance of a number of the players gives the Silvertail’s some degree of optimism leading into next weeks game against the Cambridge “Boogie” Knights