CHUMP OF THE CHAMPIONS

29/8/22
Chorley & District League Div-3: Eagle & Child 'A' 137-123 Chorley St Joseph's
v HARRY SMITH L 19-21

A team win tonight would secure promotion to Division Two and I desperately wanted to contribute with a win and round off what would be a very good season in the Chorley league. The good news was, we cracked it. Promotion gained and we even returned to top spot to go up as champions. (Thanks to a helping hand from neighbours Fox Lane who beat our rivals Farington Cons convincingly)
The bad news though, was that on a personal note the recent resurgence of losing my rag came to the fore yet again... even when I was 11-4 up! 
Seemingly in control, I should have stitched this game up well before I let Harry settle down and start finding his length. But I'd got myself giddy, cursing when I missed chances for two, getting over-excited when a little knock didn't go my way and in the end it was all an act of absolute self-destruction.
I wouldn't discredit Harry that he didn't win the match off his own skill, guile and resolve, but from my point of view I certainly contributed to losing it.
Fair play to Harry, whose deceptively unsteady delivery started putting the squeeze on me. He was thoroughly relaxed of course, whilst I was stressing out and that's really what swung the match I reckon in the crystal clear reality of the day after.
There has been a confidence crisis lately, triggered by that tonking at Farington St Paul's a couple of weeks ago. It doesn't take much to demoralise my bowling at the moment. Our arid, patchy and cracking green is not a good place to start losing it. It's delicate, tricky and even unpredictable. But as was pointed out to me afterwards by multiple witnesses, I simply played the wrong shot with jack in hand at 19-19.
I've closed many games down in my favour this season in a similarly tight situation, but a tricky round peg in to the downhill corner proved my eventual undoing.
My lead was only half decent, but Harry's second bowl was perfect and now I'm up Dicky's Meadow, which, just to clarify, is not far upstream from Shit Creek.
Harry then takes us round peg to the fast and wild running visitors corner - a mark I practice quite often, I am even more disappointed to report. He lands two reasonable woods, my first is short and inexplicably, my second one joins it. Game over and I just want to smash something - this is exactly how my first match of the league season started. How did I get back here?
Suffice to say, clubhouse window remained intact but the mat went flying in to a bed of flowery perennials. After an embarrassingly unsuccessful effort to retrieve it, I at least had enough emotional control to quickly abort the search and do the decent thing of congratulating my opponent before having a little calm down outside to put things in perspective.
On a night we were champions, I felt like a chump. But captain Steve Marginson (for whom I was delighted we sealed promotion) reminded me I'd done enough, scoring nineteen in a match won on chalks. Every single one counted and ultimately these matches are a team effort, regardless of how lost we get in our own personal battles.
Tonight's game wasn't so much a learning curve as a learning circle, for I've gone round and round again and learned nothing it would seem.
If I can't get on top of my emotions then I won't improve further and more likely my game will go in to decline.
Whilst another shitty night's sleep is guaranteed after this very sore defeat, for the record, I did go back and eventually find that mat.

WEIGHING UP FOR THE NEXT MATCH
There's only one place to go after a blood boiling loss... and that's back to the green. Playing short so much on fast greens has got me thinking of going back to heavier bowls that might run a little further to what I feel I'm delivering. A practice the following night didn't seem to be too positive until I realised a couple other of things about my delivery that I'd been neglecting of late, mainly because I rush too much. Consequently a bit of improvement came my way. 

It's weightier woods tonight then for a really tough double-bill in the Members League, with young Matthew again and another young starlet, Jack Dickinson on the card.
If I play owt like Monday night I'm going to get a double battering, but I'm hoping I've got my head straight and believe in myself to turn things around.