20 Teams from the Malaga Province entered the La Posada Triples Challenge Tournament, held over 3 days from Sat 25th to Mon 27th March

8 teams contested the first round matches on Saturday morning, with the winners going through to play their second round games in the afternoon. Lauro got 2 teams through in the morning session and both went on to win their 2nd round matches in the afternoon against teams from La Posada. The closest morning encounter was the match between a team from Benalmadena, skipped by Steve Gilkes, against a Miraflores team skipped by John Warn. The match went down to the last bowl, with the Miraflores team winning through. However, they then came up against the strong team of Gordon & Margaret Kain, playing with Jenny Aldridge, in their afternoon 2nd round match and were soundly beaten. The remaining afternoon 2nd round match saw Roberto Wright’s team from Mijas winning against a La Posada team skipped by Terry Brooker, who themselves had had a good win in the morning against Greg Ellwood’s team from Benalmadena.

Sunday morning saw the remaining 2nd round matches, which pitted 4 teams from La Posada against different opposition and, somewhat surprisingly, given the strength of some of their opposing teams, all 4 La Posada teams won through to the quarter finals. Dave Way’s team had a good win over Barbara Land’s team, Mike Banfield’s team won a fairly close encounter with Jeff Turner’s team from Don Pablo and Nigel Snaith’s team had a surprisingly easy win over Neil Stanton’s team from Benalmadena. The closest morning match was between Georg Hamblin’s La Posada team and one skipped by Lynda Hall. Lynda’s team led by 3 shots going into the 18th end but Georg’s team pulled out all the stops and picked up 5 on that final end to win by 2 shots.

The afternoon quarter finals saw the 2 teams from Lauro drawn against one another. Both had played very well to come through their 1st and 2nd round matches on the Saturday, but the team of Graham Jarrett, Paul Hughes and Trevor Burgin ended up being soundly beaten by Barry & Angie Holt, playing with Julian Thomas. Gordon Kain’s team was drawn against Roberto’s team from Mijas. This was a fairly close encounter most of the way through, with Gordon’s team just pulling away from their opponents towards the end to win the match The other 2 quarter finals were all La Posada affairs and resulted in fairly comfortable wins for Mike Banfield’s team over that of Dave Way and Georg Hamblin’s team over that of Nigel Snaith.

On Monday morning came the semi finals, with Gordon Kain’s team playing Barry Holt’s in one, with the other match again an all La Posada affair between Georg Hamblin and Mike Banfield’s teams. The match between Gordon and Barry was nip and tuck all the way and, after 16 ends was tied at 16 shots each. Gordon’s team managed to pick up 1 shot on each of the final 2 ends to run out winners by 18-16 in a very close encounter. The other semi final wasn’t quite as exciting, with Georg’s team winning comfortably 19-7 against Mike’s team.

So, the final on Monday afternoon saw the team of Jenny Aldridge and Margaret & Gordon Kain, up against the La Posada team of Ken Crofts, Jeff Rowe and Georg Hamblin and, what a great final it turned out to be. Some terrific bowling by both teams provided a great spectacle for the many spectators who had gathered to watch and saw the scores locked together at 5-5 after 8 ends and 10-10 after 13 ends. In particular, the lead bowlers, Jenny and Ken were having a tremendous battle against one another. The 16th end turned the match significantly in favour of the La Posada team. Leading 12-11 going into that end, they picked up 3 shots to go 15-11 ahead and the match looked to be all over on the 17th when they were holding a further 2 but Gordon had the last bowl. With both teams having touchers in the ditch, in came Gordon’s bowl, picking up the jack and taking it into the ditch and finishing close to his team’s toucher to score 1 shot and keep the match alive at 12-15. The final end was a nail biting affair. Although Jenny’s bowl was holding shot, Ken and Jeff had managed to cover most other openings with their bowls and were holding second when the skips came to bowl. Georg bowled a beauty to beat Jenny’s bowl for shot and, although Gordon managed to secure 2nd, it wasn’t enough and the La Posada team won the match 16-12.

A great match and, as Margaret said afterwards, a lot of finals turn out to be an anti climax to the tournament. This one certainly wasn’t!