The players gathered at Ettalong Memorial Bowling Club for the finals on October 15. 

Bowral’s Stephen Della, Garry Brown, Michael Spong and Michael Armstrong played Daniel Hooker, Darren Kedwell, Rodney Darcey and D.J. Dilworth from Maitland City for a berth in the quarter-finals.

Maitland City defeated Bowral 24-22.

Bowral manager Bill Creer said the game was very tight in the first half. Bowral hit the lead on the 13th end, but Maitland City came back strong to win by two shots.

The first eight ends were very tight bowls with Maitland leading 5-4.

Bowral put life back into their game when they picked up six shots on the 13th end to lead 15-11.

The game was won over the next four ends, when Maitland picked up 12 shots to take them to a 23-15 lead with four ends to play.

Here, Bowral put in a good fight back to score seven shots in four ends. But the damage had been done and they went down by two shots.

In defence of the loss, team manager Bill Greer said Bowral had won a lot of matches this year and to get down to the top 16 teams in NSW was a great achievement. Congratulations to Della, Brown, Spong and Armstrong on a mighty effort.

-Gordon Lewis