TOO MUCH PEDRO POWER

27/8/22
FARINGTON OPEN SINGLES: 1ST QUALIFYING ROUND
v PEDRO YATES L 8-21

Nothing less than playing as well as I can was going to give anybody a half decent game in this field. Unfortunately I didn't deliver.
Nerves crept in as Peter, known on the circuit as Pedro, started the game with unsinkable lead bowls on delicately short marks, but basically if you're good enough, you're good enough and I'm not there yet for competition bowls.
That said, I wasn't altogether ridiculously out of place and feel that I could up the standard eventually where I might give myself more of a chance to win a round or two. Getting stuck in and having a go is still better than not doing, regardless of the gulf in class that may be evident to the critical spectator. Time will tell of course. Either way, I've three more comps entered over the next couple of months to keep me focused as the league season draws to a close.
The draw kindly omitted me from a match with crown green's number one, Callum Wraight, and I say 'kindly' because experienced Pedro from just up the road in Lostock Hall was a tough enough opponent to remind me just what's required to make any sort of mark at this level.
There wasn't much sent from my opponent that wasn't hard to beat, more often than not my road wasn't so bad but length was my undoing. Pedro scooted off in to an early lead and I got a bit tensed up, rolling a touch short too many times and the odd time a touch unlucky.
Just as I'd started to look a bit more of a threat, 3-9 looked all set to become 5-9 until Ped's weighty effort to disrupt was off target, yet somehow cannoned off wayward his first bowl, clipped the jack on and made two for himself. As my clubmate Steve Wilson at greenside said, "I'll pass you the sick bucket". It certainly was a sickener, but I could only smile wryly as the heritage tin plate scoreboard in the corner clanked twice over and on to 3-11.
By no means a game changing moment of course, as the writing was already on the wall with Pedro in charge, but when you need a bit of luck...
Setting myself a revised target of double figures, I frustratingly missed two opportunities of a two and then dropped a few clangers as Pedro pushed towards an inevitable victory with steady woods more or less throughout. The game finished with what was meant to be a strike that I grounded too early out of my hand and the outcome was bloody awful - epitomising my inability to raise my game on the night.
The Farington Cons green is a lush thing of beauty and I enjoy playing it, but that's three defeats there now and against Pedro I was guilty of running up short too much. A sign of tetchiness, but also inexperience. Experience is something you can't buy and is a priceless companion to cope with this sort of company.

FINALS NIGHT 
The following night was finals night and I nipped down for an hour or so, timing it right to see the two players I most wanted to see; Aaron from next door, who did very well to reach the last sixteen, and the main man Mr Callum Wraight.
Aaron bowed out gallantly to a very good player Pete Quinn by just five points, Quinn then going on to the semis after a quarter final win against my own opponent, Pedro Yates.
Callum is rarely less than compelling viewing and he didn't disappoint here. Trailing 12-19 and then 15-20 to Michael Opie, it looked as though he might be going home with barely travel expenses covered. Facing the abyss with one bowl left - Opie unphased, still landing super bowls and landing on the jack a good thirty metres away - Callum crashed an incredible strike to save the game and then went on to somehow nudge through.
Unflustered and unbelievable, he went on to win the tournament.