By Chris Wright

BARRY Athletic Bowls Club faced a double header against local rivals Penarth Windsor last Saturday with the first team hosting at the 4Wood Green on Barry Island whilst the seconds made the journey to Penarth.

The first team, looking to bounce back after a really disappointing Carruthers Shield campaign, started nervously to trail by around 10 shots at the 6 end mark. However, with a number of new players in the team it was always going to take time for it to gel and for the new combinations to get used to one another. At the half way stage the game was fairly even before the home players started to step up and show their potential in the second half of the game to eventually win by 26 shots overall.

The home rink of Dave Townsend, Loll Paige, Carl Best and Rhys Phillips had top rink honours with a high scoring 35-18 victory.

Fellow young Home skips David Wright and Martin Clarke-Squires also came through triumphant but were never really in trouble of losing their rinks. Special mentions must go to Scott Howell and Rory Fleming who both made their league debuts for Barry Ath and both will no doubt be excellent additions to the club.

The final home rink, skipped by former welsh international Robert Horgan came back from an early heavy deficit to get to within a shot at the 15 end mark but they could never quite find the consistent run of ends to win on their rink, going down by 2 shots in the end.

Barry Athletic (12) 103-77 Penarth Windsor (2)

P Gray, C Wright, Rhod Phillips & R Horgan 21-23

G Trepleton, J Killin, R Fleming & D Wright 23-19

R Harris, S Howell, P Rogers & M Clarke-Squires 23-17

D Townsend, L Paige, C Best & R Phillips 35-18

The second team arrived in Penarth looking for keep up their 100% win success in this seasons slightly modernised PG2.

Due to Windsor’s low numbers the match was only played over 2 rinks but this didn’t put Barry off their stride as they flew out of the traps to lead comfortably early on and this was never in doubt as both rinks triumphed comfortably.

The rink of Phil Killin, Anthony Compton, Andy Dickens and Fred Phillips steamrollered their way to a 35-6 victory as a number of the players continue to put their hands up for first team selection.

The second Barry Rink skipped by the wise Albert Mintern were also comfortable throughout as they won 22-15, despite dropping a 5 on the last end.

Penarth Windsor (0) 21-58 (6) Barry Athletic

The club also got their South Wales mixed league campaign under way on Friday 4th June as they hosted Beaufort at the 4Wood Green.

This is a new league, set up to help bring men and women together and showcase their abilities but also provides the opportunity to play some of the other greens across South Wales.

Barry got off to a good start to lead narrowly at the 5 and 10 end mark but the game remained in the balance throughout. Sadly, The mixed Stags finished the game weak as all 3 rinks lost the final end to be defeated by 7 shots overall.

Barry did manage to pick up 1 point as the rink skipped by June Best managed to win 15-13.

Barry Athletic (1) 48-55 Beaufort

Rose Weaver, Cynthia Harris, Terry Collins & John Best 13-21

Clive Phillips, Pauline Vaughan, Tim Morgan & June Best 15-13

Slim Jones, Jean Rogers, Marian Snelling & Fred Phillips 20-21

All in All, a solid weekend for Barry Athletic Bowlers as they delivered two much needed wins on the Saturday after a narrow loss on Friday.

The club will look to make it three wins this weekend as they travel to Troedyrhiw on Friday in the South Wales mixed league before another double header v St Fagans on Saturday.