IT was a festival of bowls over the long weekend as nearly 100 bowlers competed at Murray Downs across four days competing in the Murray Mallee Bowls Region Finals.
Teams representing Northern District, Murray Valley, Sunraysia and Tyrrell competed in 11 finals for a chance to book a spot at Champions Week that is to be held in Bendigo in early May.
Bowls Victoria Country Manager of North West Bowls Josh Thornton was really pleased how the weekend went, as Murray Downs played host to a decent sized crowd.
“Sunday afternoon was probably the best crowd when we had the four finals going,” he said.
“We had a fair few people sitting around the greens watching and it was a really good feeling around the club.”
In a first for the district, eight matches were live streamed via Facebook on the Murray Mallee Bowls Region page and had local commentators calling the action including David Alderuccio, Buck Lehman and Garry McCaig.
“Part of the weekend was to try and innovate the sport a little bit in that area,” Thornton said.
“Chocco (Alderuccio) has always had a bit of a passion to do live streaming and those sort of things on social media.”
“At a glance our streaming results are really good, and the great thing about doing it on Facebook is that people can go back and watch it.”
“It’s a really great way to professionalise bowls in the area and promote it to a wider audience.”
Of the 11 finals, representatives from Murray Valley took out five meaning there will be a strong team heading down to compete for a State Title.
“Our playing area performed pretty well,” Thornton said.
“The events that we didn’t win, we either made the final or went very close to it.”
On a personal level, Thornton was finally able to claim the Men’s State Singles Title that has been long eluding him.
“It was probably the last of the state events that I hadn’t won at the region level,” Thornton said.
“It has taken me a while, 27 years but I finally got every region event under my belt now.”
Thornton also gave a “shout out” to Murray Downs for hosting the event.
“It was terrifically done from a club perspective,” he said.
2022 MURRAY MALLEE REGION FINALS WINNERS
LADIES STATE FOURS
Northern District – L Ashton, J Fairchild, J Laursen, R Opie.
LADIES STATE TRIPLES
Northern District – R Opie, M Scott, K Watts.
LADIES STATE PAIRS
Murray Valley – L Critten, J Wilson.
LADIES STATE SINGLES
Sunraysia – Emma Simmonds.
LADIES CHAMPION OF CHAMPIONS
Murray Valley – Diane Millsteed.
MEN’S STATE FOURS
Sunraysia – T Dickson-Arthur, R Hanns, C Mitchell, C Richards.
MEN’S STATE TRIPLES
Murray Valley – J Ford, M Holyoak, M Snel.
MEN’S STATE PAIRS
Murray Valley – G McIntosh, N Smith.
MEN’S STATE SINGLES
Murray Valley – Joshua Thornton.
MEN’S CHAMPION OF CHAMPIONS
Northern District – Jason Lunghusen.
MIXED STATE PAIRS
Sunraysia – E Simmonds, I Bettess.
