ROMILLY Bowls Club kicked off their new 2015 Cardiff Municipal League season on Saturday with games against Ferndale and Ynyscynon under the new system whereby Clubs play against each other home and away which will for the first time create genuine league champions.

The ‘Rom’ have had an excellent start to the season with the Club side having qualified for the 1st Round proper in the Carruthers Shield and the ‘A’ side topping the S V L A table.

Romilly 1st team were away to last seasons champions Ferndale for their first game which obviously was expected to be a difficult start but such is the confidence this season even with the late withdrawal of skip Brian Foscolo expectations remained high.

The ‘Rom’ welcomed Andrew Thatcher for his Club debut with Kelvyn Mills, Roger Jones and Rhodri Phillips making their league debuts. After the horrendous weather on Friday the players walked onto the green in fine weather ready for a battle with Fred Phillips replacing the injured Foscolo at skip and Phil Gershenson coming in at lead.

The game began with the rinks of Phillips and captain Mel Newman getting off to brilliant starts going ahead 8 – 0 and 9 – 2 respectively after five ends with the other rinks of Graham Cogbill and Jeff Wright behind by just two and four shots leaving Romilly ahead by nine shots.

With this welcome but unexpected start the confidence of the Romilly players was growing and by the end of the tenth, all rinks were now ahead and the lead had grown to 26 at 49 – 23. As the game reached the 15th end Romilly had maintained their 26 shot advantage but the opponents were, as expected, beginning to bowl well putting pressure on to the Romilly players but the response was to match bowl for bowl not allowing their opponents to make inroads into the lead.

At the end of the game all Romilly rinks were ahead winning by 25 shots 89 – 64 and taking all 14 points. The score line certainly shocked the home side who could not remember the last time they had been whitewashed at home.

The rink scores (Romilly First):

P Gershenson, G Rees, R Jones and F Phillips 20 – 18 A Thomas

K Mills, T Bloomfield, C Collins and M Newman 20 – 19 L Davies

A Hatcher, Rhod Phillips, G Trepleton and J Wright 18 – 13 P Jones

G Eastment, R Hewitson, M Doyle and G Cogbill 31 – 14 S Edwards

Romilly ‘A’ Team entertained Ynyscynon at Romilly Park on Saturday hoping to continue their fine start to the season. In past seasons Ynyscynon have always had the edge over Romilly but with confidence high the home side were anticipating a winning start.

The game over the first five ends was tight with all Romilly rinks ahead by just one shot each, the score remained similar by the end of the tenth with the ‘Rom’ still holding a four shot advantage. During ends 11 to 15 Romilly increased their lead to 16 shots with the rinks of Bryn Gough, Howard Jones and Tony Freeman ahead by nine, three and five respectively with Des Bannisters rink just one shot down.

Over the last six ends the rinks of Freeman and Jones outplayed their opponents winning convincingly by eight and nine shots respectively, whilst Gough’s rink won by three shots even though they dropped a six on the last end. Unfortunately Bannister’s rink, although battling hard, could not claw back their deficit and finally lost by three shots. The result was a fine win for Romilly by 17 shots 81 – 64 taking 12 points to Ynyscynon’s two.

Rink scores Romilly first:

A Bannister, T Mahoney, M Gronow and D Bannister 12 – 15 A Davies

D Mottram, C Tapscott, P Clarke and Jones 24 – 15 B Thomas

K Wesgate, D Noble, B Cheal and A Freeman 20 – 12 G Jones

L Jones, P Herbert, A M Jones and B Gough 25 – 22 G Frowen