Keep an eye on the marker

County Senior Two Bowls first round match this evening. Know nothing of my opponent other than he comes from Chatteris Town Bowls Club. Looks like I might have a bit of a game on my hands when he rolls a bowl right up to the jack on both practise ends.

By the eleventh end I'm 2-10 down. He's generally getting one bowl close each end. We've had days of hot sunshine and the green is fast, so I'm struggling with length.

Manage to stage a bit of a rally. By the eighteenth I'm just 9-12 down. But a series of good ends from my opponent sees him pull ahead to 9-19. Then I start to catch up. Not so much me playing better, more him going off the boil. Four ends to me brings the score to 17-19. Then I drop two singles to lose 17-21.

Poor performance. Why couldn't I play like last Sunday, described in Making Contact? Would have won easily this evening. Why did I play so poorly? Only difference was the fast green. Had problems before when conditions are dry. Must master this.

In fact the result was even worse. On checking the scorecard later, appears my marker made a mistake on end 27. Misreading his previous entry of 13 as 15, a win of 2 on that end sees me jump from 13 to 17. He's an experienced marker, and I certainly didn't spot the scoreboard going up by too many. So the true result was 15-21. Just shows, it's a good idea to keep your own mental tally of the score.

Here are the singles results so far. Not looking too great. Maybe I'll give County competitions a miss next year. Just makes such a congested diary of matches. This evening's scorecard is also below.