Hamilton Power surges at right time
Upset win to Hamilton Power in PLQ 2016, by two shots over Helensvale Hawks. Minor premiers Broadbeach Bulls finish third. In A-Grade, joy for the Hawks, a comfortable win over Greenslope Geckos. Congratulations to winners HAMILTON POWER (Premier Grade) and HELENSVALE HAWKS (A-Grade), the POWER winning in a THRILLER, a TWO SHOT margin over three rinks, 63 ends.
For the POWER, Brendan Egan took Nathan Rice 30-19, Sean Baker took Mark Casey 18-14, but for HAWKS, Brett Wilkie opened up a window, 25-12, over Michael Brown, but not quite enough to cover the losses on the other rinks, HAWKS down by two.
GREENSLOPES GECKOS runners up in A-Grade showdown, behind Helensvale HAWKS.
Here’s how it played out:
Elimination and Qualifying finals
Hamilton went out to an early lead with Sean Baker having a good win over Mark Casey. Helensvale’s other two rinks rallied, with the Hawks slowly coming back and getting within five shots with one end left to play. Mark Casey’s rink then held five shots to hold a draw until Sean Baker drew second shot with his last bowl to claim the win for the Hamilton Power.
Belmont blaze when out to an early lead with John finlayson having a big win over Wayne Wilson. Kelvin Kerkow’s rink started to cover this deficit for the sharks getting them back into the game and taking a small lead. The Blaze rallied and got within two shots going into the last end, with Kerkow not having to play his last bowl the Sharks then progressed
through to the next round.
Major and minor semi finals
Hamilton jumped out of the blocks against minor premiers Broadbeach with Brendan Egan going out to a big lead against Sean Ingham. Ryan Bester from Broadbeach tried his best to combat this deficit but was unable to counteract the loss with Hamilton taking the win and advancing straight into the grand final.
Some positional changes of the South Tweed outfit saw Neville Jenkins move to skip replacing Wayne Wilson who was rested, Dean Smith came into the team. This change didn’t work with Mark Casey’s rink for Helensvale going out to a big early lead against Jenkins. Kerkow’s team rallied late for the sharks claiming a number of shots but was unable to counteract the deficit from the other two rinks with Helensvale advancing through to the next round.
Preliminary final
In a high-quality preliminary final Broadbeach took the early lead until the three Helensvale rinks all stepped up and went straight past Broadbeach to claim a lead with Broadbeach unable to catch them.
Grand final
Hamilton jumped out of the blocks fast leading Helensvale Hawks 31-15 after 26 ends with Egan and Baker going out to early leads on their rinks (Brown 7-10 Wilkie; Egan 14-3 Rice; Baker 10-2 Casey).
Helensvale knuckled down and clawed their way back to be 42 all after 43 ends thanks to Wilkie’s rink. (Brown 8-21 Wilkie; Egan 20-11 Rice; Baker 14-10 Casey).
Scores were level again after 53 ends until Eagans ring picked up six shots to give Hamilton another buffer with nine ends to play.
Helensvale rallied to be two shots behind with one and left to play on two of the rinks. (Brown/Wilkie; Baker/Casey)
With one bowl left to play on separate rinks, with Sean Baker having the last bowl on one rink while holding one shot and Brett Wilkie with one bowl left to play on the other rank also holding one shot meant that Hamilton still held a two shot buffer with Wilkie needing to convert to make three shots to make a draw or four to win. With Wilkie needing to sit a bowl through and stay for three shots, he drifted narrow handing the game and the premiership to the Hamilton Power for the first time since their first and only grand final victory in 2001.
Hamilton Power defeat Helensvale Hawks 60-58 after 63 ends
Michael Brown 12-25 Brett Wilkie
Brendon Egan 30-19 Nathan Rice
Sean Baker 18-14 Mark Casey
A Grade Finals
In the a grade competition Belmont blaze ended Enoggera Eagles finals hopes after winning their elimination final while Greenslopes trounced Broadbeach Bulls in the qualifying final.
Greenslopes continued this great form by cleaning up minor premiers Helensvale in the major semi-final later that night. Belmont ended a bad day for Broadbeach knocking them out and advancing to the preliminary final to take on Helensvale on Sunday morning.
Helensvale jumped out of the blocks early and continued to maintain the pressure for the whole game to win comfortably over Belmont advancing into the final setting up a rematch with Greenslopes.
In a complete reversal from the night before Helensvale jumped out to an early lead of 21 shots after 31 ends and just powered away from Greenslopes stamping their authority and winning the match easy to take home their 7th Premier League A grade title since the Grades inception in 2005.
A Grade results:
Fogg 12-1 Piggott
Dixon 2-13 Christie
Sparkes 6-13 Monk
Pearson 2-16 Carpenter
Helensvale Hawks lead Greenslopes Geckos 43-22 after 31 ends
Helensvale Hawks lead Greenslopes Geckos 76-41 after 55 ends
Helensvale Hawks defeat Greenslopes Geckos 100-68 after 82 ends.
Brett Fogg 21-16 Steve Piggott
Rod Dixon 16-18 Darren Christie
Damien Sparkes 15-29 Chris Monk
Dave Pearson 16-37 Jason Carpenter
Message from PLQ Chairman Brett Wilkie
Congratulations to Hamilton Power on an impressive team performance to win the 2016 title. Helensvale pushed them all the way to the line with many of Hamilton’s players stepping up to get them over the line. Also well done to the Helensvale Hawks on taking out another A Grade title. I believe this season was one of the most closely contested we have ever had in both grades of the competition. Thank you once again to Club Pine Rivers for hosting another fantastic Finals Series and our other partners AeroBowls, BCIB, Club Helensvale, BLK and Bramble Bay
Bowls Club.
