Young Bull: Jordan Souter lines up this bowl against Rochester in Tongala’s four-shot Division two win against Rochester, which has it placed inside the top four with two weeks of the season remaining.
Tongala’s biggest test of the 2022-23 Campaspe playing area Division One lawn bowls pennant season arrives on Saturday when it tackles the ladder-leading Rich River combination.
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Rich River, with two home-and-away rounds remaining, has a mortgage on the top rung of the ladder — 25 points ahead of reigning premier Tongala.
At the weekend Tongala had the bye and Rich River continued its unbeaten run with a 16-nil (57-shot) win against bottom-team Deniliquin.
Peter Nesbitt moved to the top rung of the skip’s ladder with his sixth win of the season and is the top-ranked bowler in the Division One competition. Fellow skips Stan Barker is also unbeaten this season.
The last member of its skipping trio, Jason McCloy, is fresh off a 28-shot win against Deniliquin.
Nesbitt replaced Tongala’s Bradley Tinning as the number one seed, Tinning losing his top ranking after losing his first game of the season in the week before the bye.
Tongala has Rich River and third-ranked Mathoura in the final two home-and-away games of the season.
— Wayne Cowley and Peter O’Brien have moved Tongala’s Division two team into the top four, replacing Rochester after the weekend’s match between the pair.
Tongala won by four shots and now sits 12 points inside the four, facing tough opposition in Echuca (third) and second-ranked Rich River in the final two weeks of competition.
It will need victory against at least one of those teams to ensure it keeps its playoff place, with Rochester facing top-team Moama Steamers and bottom-team Deniliquin.
Big win: Wayne Cowley has a big role to play in the final two weeks of the season, having skipped his rink to a 10 shot win on Saturday. Tongala has the second and third ranked teams to overcome before qualifying for the finals.
Cowley won his match by 10 shots and O’Brien was a nine-shot winner, but the 15-shot loss of Steve Usher’s rink almost bought the team undone.
O’Brien is the third-ranked skip in Division two this season, but it was the win of sixth-ranked Rochester skip Tim Quinlan, which almost stopped the rise of Tongala into finals calculation.
— Tongala’s Division four team is teetering on the second bottom rung of the ladder with two weeks of home-and-away competition remaining.
It has the two toughest assignments in the competition in that final fortnight, facing top-of-the-ladder Rich River and second-ranked Moama Steamers.
On the weekend it lost by eight shots to fourth-ranked Mathoura, leaving it equal on points with bottom-team Rochester.
It was not, however, all one-way traffic as the defeat came in spite of Robert Hosking’s 19-all draw with his Mathoura opponent. Beth Vistarini lost the other rink 16-24.
— Tongala’s Division two midweek team is 11 points outside the finals with two rounds of the season remaining, facing the team it needs to replace inside the top four this weekend — Mathoura.
The draw is tough for Tongala, even with a win against Mathoura this weekend. In the final week it has top-team Echuca and Mathoura, the team it needs to dislodge to play finals, faces fifth-ranked Rochester.
Tongala suffered a heavy loss on Saturday, down by 51 to second-ranked Moama Steamers — despite Peter O’Brien winning his rink by five shots.
On the other two rinks Joy Makepeace lost by 22 and Elaine Hosking suffered a 34-shot defeat.
— In Division three finals are not out of the question for Tongala as it now sits 12 points outside the four with two weeks to play.
It has top-of-the-ladder Echuca this weekend, but faces the team it needs to dislodge in order to play finals — Lockington — in the final round.
Lockington also has a tough draw, pitted against second-ranked Moama Steamers on Saturday, before the Tongala game in the final week of competition prior to finals.
Tongala beat Rochester by 10 shots on Saturday to stay in contention, while Lockington lost by eight shots to improve its chances of qualifying for the finals.
Beth Vistarini won by eight and Bett Ozols by two to make it a clean sweep for the Tongala Division three midweek outfit.
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