GEOFF JUST A CUT ABOVE

1/9/22
Eagle Members League: Div-1
v GEOFF BIBBY L 14-21 (Off 3-3)

As the club's official grass cutter, there's not much Geoff Bibby doesn't know about the contours of our Eagle & Child green and Geoff proved to be a cut above in our Members League bout.
With two matches remaining, opportunity beckoned to secure a top four spot with two more victories. For Geoff, this was his final match of the league. After a slow start, he was now holding second place, although with players beneath such as myself able to topple him with games in hand.
Whilst I didn't underestimate the difficulty of the match ahead, I wasn't expecting so few opportunities to make a mark on the game. Geoff likes this green running fast and was pretty much relentless with quality bowling from the off and must have got eight or nine ahead before I managed to break and have a good spell myself.
A good spell it was too, clawing back in to it with much better woods and a couple of lucky let-offs to go all the way to 14-13 with my nose in front.
Next end and the full width of the green in to the far clubhouse corner, my lead bowl and the jack sit proudly side by side. Geoff rolls extremely close to make it risky going in for two, my attempted block shot fails to cover and Geoff piles in with absolute precision to knock me out and make two of his own. This got a roar of approval from those watching chaps under the clubhouse veranda and rightly so, what a shot!
In a game that proved to be swayed by who had control of the block, Geoff proceeded to then beat me up on what might have seemed an obvious straight pegging mark across the green that I just wasn't getting - certainly not well enough to match his continuously close efforts and Geoff ran out the deserved winner.
There was a sense of another small victory within this loss though. Despite the annoyance that one more chalk would have gained an extra point on the league ladder, NO tantrums, NO flying mats and NO foot-flicking bowls in to the ditch. Graceful in defeat again (or at least, graceful by my own weakly restrained standards)