Turned on one end II

Dilley Cup match this evening against Eynesbury. First time I've played in this knockout competition. Three rinks of four men each side, two bowls each. Highest total bowls score wins. I'm skipping on rink 4, my colleagues a mix of B and C Team players. Our opponents have four Men's Fours teams in the Thursday evening league, their top two in divisions one and two.

Realise we're up against Eynesbury's finest when we drop four on the first end. By the seventh end we're down 3-10. Is it going to be a rout? Not yet. We string together some good ends to go 12-11 up. But it's a bit of a roller coaster match. Often we're quite a few down as I go to bowl, managing to cut down our loss or steal the end.

The pressure builds as we go 13-20 down by the eighteenth end. Have a chat with our players. We're winning handsomely on one of the other rinks, tying on the second. Our job is to minimise our loss for the team to have a chance of winning on total score.

On the nineteenth end manage to turn one up to four up. My first bowl is a yard on to trail the jack to a better position for three. My second bowl increases our score to four. It's now 17-20.

But the pressure is too much. We drop two on the penultimate end. As I come to bowl on the final end we're down six. My first two feet short, their skip puts another one in. Facing a monstrous seven down. Try and draw to reduce the loss. Perfect line and length, looks like the shot may even catch the jack. Then disaster, my bowl has the thinnest of skims against a short bowl. The final result on our rink 17-29!

One of our rinks has already come in winning by six. Our final rink is up by three. So we're in overall deficit by three. We gain another two on the penultimate end. Just need to win the final end by one to grab a draw, when all three rinks will play one extra end. Just miss out, losing the final end by one.

A victory to Eynesbury by just two bowls! And another match turned on a single end, when we lost seven on our rink. Here's our scorecard.