TOYS TOSSED OUT OF THE PRAM

Thursday 29th June 2023

Leyland & District League Div-3: Eagle Reds - Leyland & Farington Social
v GRAHAM CUMMERSON L 18-21

Firstly, before the post-mortem of this second home loss in four days commences, a word of praise for my opponent, Graham.
Whilst we were both a bit hit and miss earlier in the match, he played very well to come back from behind and then produce top quality deliveries on the last two ends to take a fully deserved win. In particular, his final two woods were absolute top end.
But, these pages are basically all about me and I hit a dark place after this match for being unable to legislate for mistake after mistake after mistake.
I felt I played poorly for much of the match. Concentration was difficult to maintain and trying to concentrate on concentrating seemed to make things worse. Even when ahead by six or seven, I was dissatisfied and thought myself rather lucky to have a lead. 

I noted Graham had missed practice at the start which may have affected his game early on, but he started to find a groove and began to punish my errors and give himself a chance.
At 16-16, I pulled myself together to take the next two points, but lost the initiative yet again with clumsy woods on a simple straight mark and luckily conceding just the one. Then Graham stitched me up the next two ends with cracking woods to send me off in to a temper tantrum. I was absolutely livid.
Not that I'd lost, I'm cool about losing these days. It was the manner of it. Again, not to take anything away from Graham. I was simply unhappy with the way I bowled throughout the match. Playing well means more than winning in many ways, but then I find losing is less easy to take on home turf and this only fanned the flames of what to onlookers, must have seemed a ridiculous overreaction. It's just a game of bowls in the basement division of the Leyland & District League.
Bowls got chucked in to the rough, repetitive expletives sounded in rant format. Toys completely tossed out of the pram with dummy well and truly spat. I got so bloody unforgivably cross with myself and exploded. I made a dick of myself, but in hindsight I got completely lost in the moment and that's how it was. I tried to be as gracious as I could to my opponent who I was strangely pleased for in a way. I could have been less of a grump to Graham during the match, he seemed a very pleasant and friendly chap, but there was a storm brewing within and the disgust with myself snowballed. I just didn't enjoy the game at all. 

My good home record has been breached twice this week (both against Graham's) but it's been coming. I've had a few tight wins here that have gone quite close to the wire recently. I seem to have lost confidence at the Eagle just now, or perhaps it's this feeling of putting too much pressure on myself again. My best form of late has been away from home and has been where I've felt much more comfortable and confident in what I'm doing. How times have changed.
After going home and wondering if I can actually be arsed with nights like this when I end up losing the plot, I remember that next week it's two away games (if hopefully still selected) and so some hope to cling on to before making any drastic decisions under this current cloud of doom.