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Before we begin, a big thanks to the following people for their work throughout the season: My running mate Richard 'Half' Price as always, Allison Millington and her several dozen kitchen volunteers that gave up hours of their time during the season, Rachel, Emily and the bar staff for bearing the brunt of our collective drinking problem, Dangerous David Nester for getting the greens ready for us, and Adam Mac, who both helped out throughout the season with Corner to Corner, toucher vouchers.
They say all good things must come to an end, and after 6 weeks of fun and frivolity, we had reached the summit of the Spring 2023 Manning Jack Attack season, bringing a close to what has been yet another ripsnorting edition of the Greatest Social Bowls Competition Between Manning Road and the Canning River, and if there's a better Jack Attack competition in Australia, then I haven't bothered looking at it.
In case you're unaware of the format, Finals Week is very simple – The major prize money finals are 1st vs 2nd (Norfolk Enchants vs Macatac 2), 3rd vs 4th (Manning Up vs Shapes), and 5th vs 6th (Verse 1 vs Bowling Stones), with the teams in last and second-last playing off to get their names drawn onto the Wooden Spoon trophy:
Fancy that, This Is How We Roll were already on there
While the winners of the Spoon game get a roll of toilet paper, because if you finish last, then you're crap, and if you finish second-last you're close to crap, and what's close to crap?
Toilet paper.
Borrowed from the Men's Toilet at Manning
Outside of that, the teams from 9th to 26th on the ladder get paired up and drawn against each other, with no grading of teams involved, and to the detriment of some, there's no money for the 4 biggest wins on the night in Week 6….
Now, on to the show.
The Corner to Corner Challenge
On a beautiful summer's evening, we had one last Corner to Corner Challenge to end 2023, although it was a bigger challenge for the people trying to watch it, because we were facing directly into the sunset while one player from every team sent down their bowl:
In the wash-up, after a couple of measures, the winner of the Grass Corner to Corner was Jan from Stop Drop & Bowl, and the runner-up was Frea from the Unbelievabowls:
Jan from Stop Drop & Bowl on the left, and Frea on the right
And over on the Synthetic, the Top 2 was a pair of very familiar faces to Manning Jack Attack, with the win going to Todd/Kochie from the Great Bowls of Fire, and the runner-up was Nat from the CDs:
Well done to all winners throughout the course of the season
The Overall Night
One last glorious night for the handicapper, with 8 out of the 12 games finishing in tiebreaks (Including the Grand Final), and 2 games had a drawn set, which means a mere 2 teams took all 4 points...
By sheer coincidence, it was both Buffed Helmets teams that won in straight sets, which means they would've easily been the Top 2 finishers for Week 6, but we've never paid out for the weekly Top 4 in the final week, so they've been robbed as badly as the Adelaide Crows were in Round 23.
For the record, the Top 4 variances would've been; 1st Buffed Helmets 2 (4pts +22), 2nd Buffed Helmets 1 (4pts +9) 3rd Bowling Stones (3pts +9) 4th Bowl Movements (2pts +7).
Now, moving on to the most important result of the night, the Grand Final between Norfolk Enchants and Macatac 2, and it was only fitting that this year's Grand Final went down to a tiebreak, which means 5 out of the last 6 Manning Jack Attack Grand Finals have gone to tiebreaks, but thanks to a bowl from a team captain with a massive hole in his gums, the champion team of Spring 2023, earning the title of Champions of Challenger Avenue...
Norfolk Enchants!
L to R: Guy, Justin, Brendan and Tim
A trophy to match their title of Best team name, and the end of a chapter that began when Quinny was told to get his own Jack Attack team by Glen O'Brien (He and after an extensive recruitment search that seemed to last all of 2 minutes and 34 seconds, he wound up with Justin, Tim and Guy, and the end result was a debut season to remember by going undefeated and winning the title, and they would've been a chance at claiming the Best Team Uniform title, had those Ken Done-inspired team shirts not debuted until 6:15pm on Wednesday night.
As for the Grand Final, it was a game befitting of a title decider, and a well-earned comeback win for Norfolk Enchants against the Maccers, who won the 1st Set 10-2 thanks to a hot start with 6 on the powerplay, but Quinny and the team settled in and won the 2nd Set 6-2, and crucially would get last bowl in the tiebreak as they only dropped 1 on the last end of the set....
And, after some debate about the length of the end (Umpire JT performed the Montreal Screwjob and made them push the jack back 4 metres), the ultimate winner in the tiebreak came via Quinny from the lead position, as Jacquie couldn't change things (Only just going a metre through on her last), so Justin stayed well away from the head on both bowls to ensure any choke was avoided.
Quinny pointing out the winner
TWO team huddles before a tiebreak
As we found out during his winners speech, Quinny was bowling under physical duress as he had a tooth removed during the week, making people think he's a very happy Collingwood supporter.
Actually, that means his next team name should be Norfolk Enteeth.
Nevertheless, congratulations to the ladies from Macatac 2 via Como Bowling Club, they were extremely consistent all year and had their only defeat of the season in the tiebreak, and I would note that is the best-ever result by an all-ladies team in Manning Jack Attack history... Macatac 2 and the CDs had both finished 3rd previously, but Macatac 2 have managed to top themselves!
L to R: Some tosser, Di Mac, Jacquie Pringle & Penny Thompson
Moving on to the Bronze Medal game between Manning Up and Shapes, and this was the tightest game of the night, with just 1 shot seperating the teams over 10 ends, and a grand total of 15 shots over the course of the game, but winning the arm-wrestle with some superb bowls at the end of the 1st Set and the 2nd Set...
3rd place went to Manning Up!
L to R: Mark, Phil, John, Trav, Simon, and the front row is Brent
A successful 2023 for Manning Up, 3rd-place finishes in both the Summer and Spring Jack Attacks, this season being a big effort after team manager John went through some health issues that left him unable to bowl at all this season, and a near-catastrophe in Week 5 (When the gents had a Primary School graduation) was avoided with help from unlikely sources, but they stuck together and perserved once again like all good teams do.
As for the game, Manning Up were behind for 4 ends of the 1st Set and trailed 1-3 with an end to play, then picked up a final end 3 to win the set 4-3, then dropped a 3 to start the 2nd Set and trailed for most of the running once again...
However, two superb draw bowls from Mark ensured the game wouldn't reach a tiebreak - The first came with his last bowl of the 3rd End, when he drew shot stone cold from 4 down to keep the score at 2-3, and the next came with the last bowl of the night, with Manning Up deploying a last end powerplay trailing 2-4, with Mark bowling through a tight window and drawing shot stone cold to draw the set 4-4, ensuring the game wouldn't even reach a tiebreak.
This was the 3rd End... The lone black bowl was that of Mark
So the unlucky 4th-placed team was Shapes, which still represents their best-ever result in Manning Jack Attack, and it was nothing that they didn't earn after putting in the hard yards over the long break... Although team manager Craig couldn't stick around for the photo, so Peter, Tristan and Ian got their photo with a local D-Grade celebrity:
Moving on, the last of the Money finals was the 5th vs 6th game between Verse 1 and the Bowling Stones, which also seemed to be the Christmas Cup because both teams actually read our email and put some festive attire on, and this was one of a few repeat fixtures from this week, as the teams met back in Week 1 and Verse 1 won so thoroughly they wound up in the Top 4 for that week...
Well, it was a different story this time around, as the Bowling Stones recovered from dropping the 1st Set to winning the 2nd Set with a 13-0 shutout and completed the win in the tiebreak to claim 5th place for this season, matching their 5th place from the Summer 2023 competition!
The lord once said to Tiff, come forth and receive eternal life...
In the end, she finished fifth.
Again.
So that means Verse 1 were the last of the money-getters for this season, quite a fair result given they were in 12th spot after Week 4, but they've finished the year with yet another Top 6 finish, and Ronni later picked up a bottle of Pepperjack Cab Sauv for the best Christmas attire when she found a pair of reindeer antlers to match the tinsel she'd glued to the back of her head.
Peg, Mick, Ronni and Sally of a festive Verse 1
As for the game, I did mention it started as being all Verse 1 in the 1st Set, at one stage leading 10-1, but as it turned out the Stones would win the last 8 ends of the night, as they held the last 2 ends of the 1st Set to cut it back to 10-6, then started the 2nd Set by routinely setting long ends, which proved the undoing of Verse 1 as the Stones won the 2nd Set in a 13-0 shutout (An unlucky number for some), and sealed the win with 2 in the tiebreak.
Now, outside of the Top 6, the last major award to give away was the Mitchell Trophy to the best & fairest player of the season, named in honour of Matty & Kate Mitchell's work in setting up Jack Attack, and this year was a tough one to pick, because the Top 6 teams were all great team efforts without a true standout player, so the panel (Myself, Half Price & Glen O'Brien) made a consensus decision to stray from convention and give the trophy to a player from a team from outside the Top 6, and after looking through the nominees, we all agreed on the winner...
The winner of this season's Mitchell Trophy was Loose Bruce Stocker from the Bowled Guys!
For those of you who don't know, Loose Bruce lives not even 30 seconds from Manning Memorial, and he's been a stalwart of Manning Jack Attack for no fewer than 8 years, starting off with Todd in the Great Bowls of Fire alongside his son Jamie (Who was about 4 feet tall in those days), which resulted in a title win in the Spring of 2016, before he branched out and played for the T-Birds, which became the Bowled Guys we know today, and in that time Jamie grew from 4 feet tall to 8 feet tall.
In fact, by the time I've written this, Jamie is now 9 feet tall.
But, the reason we settled on Bruce as the winner was because every single person we spoke to about which player would make a worthy best & fairest all mentioned Bruce's name, that he was consistently playing good bowls (In the face of a rotating line-up might I add), and we saw it again on Wednesday night as he consistently got on the mat down 3 or 4 shots against some very good opposition in Macatac 1, and would find a way to draw in second shot and miss the holder by inches.
A well-earned achievement after another consistent year, matching at least 7 consistent years - Bravo to Bruce.
And now, we must finish off the results for Week 6, and we best start off with that other important game I haven't mentioned yet, the Wooden Spoon game between This Is How We Roll and the Top Shots, appropriately played on the decaying Grass Rink 2, and this was one of the more worthy Wooden Spoon games I've ever seen, as This Is How We Roll were already enscribed as a Wooden Spoon winner from Summer 2022, and the Top Shots made history as the first team to be as pointless as a circle after 5 games in a Manning Jack Attack season....
BUT THAT RUN CAME TO AN END ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT, because the Top Shots WON and claimed the Toilet Roll for being Close to Crap, which means this season's Wooden Spoon has once again gone the way of This Is How We Roll!
Gerry, a mix of Where's Wally and Santa Claus
The final score was 5-2 6-6, a Houdini escape act to rival the man himself, and when myself and Pricey first saw the scores we thought it was a typo, and that the Top Shots had smuggled in a point in the 2nd Set to avoid the first imperfect season in Manning Jack Attack history, but it turned out they really did win the 1st Set and drew the 2nd to win the game.
I would also note that with Stop Drop & Bowl playing on Rink 3, Sharyn decided to venture over and play for This Is How We Roll (She swapped spots with Lisa), in a bid to keep up her record as the player with the most wooden spoons in Manning Jack Attack, a move that worked out perfectly for Stop Drop & Bowl, who went on to win a set... and then another end after the 2nd Set.
Moving on, the biggest variance win of the night was that of the Buffed Helmets 2 against the CDs over on Grass Rink 8, and this was another repeat fixture from two weeks prior, when the Buffs (More specifically Kip) won the tiebreak with the last bowl of the night, but it never quite got to the same heights, as Scotty, Carry and the team won the game by 22 shots and dropped just 1 shot for the night against Nat, Marg and Marg's English backpackers.
Just a word of advice for the English backpackers - Don't go to Wolf Creek.
As previously mentioned, it was a Buffs 1-2 in the variance ladder for Week 6, as Buffed Helmets 1 finished 2nd overall with their straight sets +9 shot victory against the Jackson 3 on Grass Rink 5, and this was a much-improved Buffs 1 team, as the great Fuzzy (Anthony) returned after pretty much missing the entire season due to various Over 50s cricket commitments, while the Jackson 3 were weakened by the loss of Alex, who had already jetted out with Allison and the rest of the Millington/Soudure family for a Christmas holiday in Italy, leaving Richard and Nick to fight it out.
They did get a bottle of Pepperjack Shiraz for their troubles, while Allison and Alex have to hang out with wine-drinking Italians in Florence.
While the Bowling Stones would've been 3rd overall with a +9 tiebreak win, 4th overall would've been a first for this season, as the $10 would've gone to Bowl Movements for being +7 up on the variance...
The obvious first is that they lost in a tiebreak against Stop Drop & Bowl on Grass Rink 3, making them the only team this season to finish in the Top 4 after losing a tiebreak (3-5 10-1 0-1), so it was only appropriate that they received absolutely nothing.
Fun note, that game was actually the last game to finish for this season, concluding 5 minutes after the Macatac 1 vs Bowled Guys tiebreak, the ultimate winner in the tiebreak coming via Lisa of Stop Drop & Bowl:
This was the last bowl of 2023!
Continuing with the results, Grass Rink 4 featured the game between the two Week 5 free fallers Crawshaw Crisis Committee and the Unbelievabowls, both deservedly punted to the grass after plummeting out of the Top 6 to outside of the Top 10, but it turned out to be a good competitive game as the Unbelievabowls started out fast with an 8-2 1st Set win, then Crawshaw responded and led 7-0 with an end to play in the 2nd, and succeeded in 'only' giving away 6 on the Unbelievabowls powerplay to win the set 7-6 and force the tiebreak, which Wilko, Miracle Malcolm and the team duly won.
What I think is Amanda on the mat
After leading the ladder at the conclusion of Week 2, the Unbelievabowls lost their last 4 games... 3 of them in tiebreaks.
On Synthetic Rink 2, Ten Pin celebrated avoiding the Wooden Spoon Game by doing what they do best, going to a tiebreak against Salty Bowls 2 (Featuring a rather tanked Glen O'Brien and Belinda + Luke from Rock N Bowl), and this time they managed to win it.
Coral, the most experienced player in the history of Manning Jack Attack
On Synthetic Rink 6, the Great Bowls of Fire continued their preparations for the Summer 2024 competition by losing in a tiebreak against Salty Bowls 1, who ended their debut season with a good win against the 3-time champion team, who had raced out to a fast start with an 11-4 win the 1st Set, and led 4-0 after 2, then the Salty Bowlers gave them a lethal overdose of NaCL and went 1, 4 (On the double powerplay) & 3 to win the 2nd Set 8-4, and then won the tiebreak.
On Synthetic Rink 7, Ebowla Bad Ibowla Good defeated the Steam Rollers in a tiebreak, which was probably a fair result as EBIG won the 1st Set 7-3, then could only sit back and witness as the Steam Rollers damn near burgled the 2nd Set from them by coming from behind to win it 4-3 on the last end, but Lee, Ben, Dave & young Xavier got one over the ladies in the tiebreak.
Steph O'Brien has not seen this photo until now
And that means the last game I haven't gone through to end the year was the game on Synthetic Rink 1 between the Bowled Guys, featuring our Mitchell Trophy winner Loose Bruce (With Jason & Craig), against Macatac 1 (Duncan, Graham and Heath), and despite neither team having nothing to play for, they put on one of the best games of the night, as Macatac 1 won the 1st Set 5-2, which could easily have been more were it not for Bruce cutting out a good 6 shots with 2 bowls (And that was just from what I saw), and eventually the Bowled Guys got the mat in the 2nd Set and went on to win it 6-1 to force the tiebreak, but the Maccers would out-draw the nude nuts in the one-end shootout to get the victory and bring an end to Jack Attack for 2023.
Results
Grass 2 (Wooden Spoon Game): Top Shots (3pts +3) defeated This Is How We Roll (1pt -3), 5-2 6-6
Grass 3: Stop Drop & Bowl (3pts -7) defeated Bowl Movements (2pts +7), 5-3 1-10 1-0 in the tiebreak
Grass 4: Crawshaw CC (3pts -5) defeated Unbelievabowls (2pts +5), 2-8 7-6 4-0 in the tiebreak
Grass 5: Buffed Helmets 1 (4pts +9) defeated Jackson 3, 6-1 8-4
Synthetic 1: Macatac 1 (3pts -1) defeated Bowled Guys (2pts +1), 5-2 1-6 1-0 in the tiebreak
Synthetic 2: Ten Pin (3pts 0) defeated Salty Bowls 2 (2pts 0), 3-6 5-2 1-0 in the tiebreak
Synthetic 3 (3rd vs 4th): Manning Up (3pts +1) defeated Shapes (1pt -1), 4-3 4-4
Synthetic 4 (Grand Final): Norfolk Enchants 3pts -4) defeated Macatac 2 (2pts +4), 2-10 6-2 1-0 in the tiebreak
Synthetic 5 (5th vs 6th): Bowling Stones (3pts +9) defeated Verse 1 (2pts -9), 6-10 13-0 2-0 in the tiebreak
Synthetic 6: Salty Bowls 1 (3pts -3) defeated Great Bowls of Fire (3pts +3), 4-11 8-4 1-0 in the tiebreak
Synthetic 7: Ebowla Bad Ibowla Good (3pts +3) defeated Steam Rollers (2pts -3), 7-3 3-4 2-0 in the tiebreak
Synthetic 8: Buffed Helmets 2 (4pts +22) defeated CDs, 9-0 14-1
Comments
Wilko, Crawshaw CC: "We might come back next year"
Di, Macatac 2: "I think the Norfolkers did a wonderful job and they thoroughly deserved the win!"
Quinny, Norfolk Enchants: "After last season Glen told me to go out and get my own team, so I scoured the bowlos of Perth for the best players available… didn't quite get the best, but look where we've finished up!"
Scratch: "Got up at 4:30 today to re-draft all the cattle... then had to go to a function at midday, arrived a half hour late, but made up for that half hour here with a couple of beers, then bowled left-handed at the last moment… and I still went better than Carmo."
Bruce, Bowled Guys: "Big thanks for the honour, one the best achievements of my life, I've now got more best & fairests than Todd."
And that was the Spring 2023 edition of Manning Jack Attack, we shall be back in early February for the Summer 2024 edition, and until then, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
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