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Dorchester Crash out of Denny Cup in quarter final.

By The Secretary Dorchester Bowls Club

Monday, 30 January 2023

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Dorchester Bowls Club Contributor

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Dorchester Crash out of Denny Cup in quarter final.

Dorchester 60 Riverain 82

After a string of impressive results this season Dorchester finally met their match in a quarter final encounter against Riverain, at the neutral venue of Lodden Vale, Basingstoke.

The county town quest of reaching the National semi final for the second successive year came to grief, partially due to late changes needed to the team at the last minutes due to illness and non availability of players. For the first time this season all four rinks were playing together instead of the usual 2 home and 2 away format.
Riverain began the game in boisterous mood and had gained the initiative on all rinks and held a ten shot overall advantage after only two end of play.
The gap opened to 13 shots after five ends before Dorchester slowly put the brakes on their feisty opponent to such good effect that the game was turned on its head as the county town grit paid off, and they shook Riverain as they went ahead after twelve ends with a slender 47 -46 lead.

At this stage with game on Dorchester seemed to have used all their energy in the recovery, and having battled to regain control of the match were unable to maintain the pressure and the Denny Cup ambitions bubble burst for Dorchester as Riverain regrouped and hit back with a vengeance to move clear at 60- 52, with six ends of play remaining. A second recovery failed to materialize for Dorchester and the Hertfordshire club piled on the agony as Dorchester slumped to a final 22 shot reverse.

Three of the County town rinks faired reasonably well with single figure results but the fourth hit a brick wall which proved to be the deciding factor.

The irony was that it was Team Manager Martin Puckett’s rink who had a bad day at the office in dipping out by 27 shots to 8 against the Riverain’s Lloyd Sabatini rink, but had been achieving anchor results in previous games. The disruption to the rink due to illness was unfortunate.

George Spracklen and his Dorchester quartet were unable to go forward from their 13-11 winning position against Riverain skip Nick Muir and drifted to a disappointing 13-17 result, Darren Nutman and his rink battled to an “even Steven” 19 shots a piece ending, having held a winning 18-12 position earlier against Riverain skip Tony Webb. It was left to Nick Voss to get the only positive result for Dorchester in a 20 -19 narrow win over Glen Williams

Although bitterly disappointed by the loss the Dorchester squad can take great satisfaction from the progress it has made in proving now capable of taking on all comers. As Colin Gifford the club’s long standing player said “Martin Puckett has brought the team on during his time as Team manager and the building blocks are now in place for future success”.

Frank Gwatkin

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The Secretary

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