After flipping the page on the calender, leaving a month of losses in October behind them, Hoppers Crossing finally broke through for its first win since being promoted to the Bowls Victoria division 2 competition.
Hoppers not only beat Sunshine City, they trounced them in a four-rinks-to-nothing 101-64 victory at home on Saturday.
Though relieved to see the end of a four-game losing streak, Hoppers coach Ian Andrew was not so shocked by the result.
“We’d played two top teams in a row and they’d only just beat us in the past couple of weeks,” he told Star Weekly.
“The team has been improving every week and it was only a matter of time before we had a win.”
The win has lifted Hoppers off the bottom of the ladder.
At the midway point of Saturday’s game, Hoppers had two rinks down, but the two skippers fought hard to get their crews back into the contest and help secure all four rinks and an all-important maximum 18 points.
“It turned out to be a perfect day,” Andrew said.
“At the break, we were 25 shots up and we improved on that.
“There were two rinks down and we spoke to them about improving, to try and get the points, and they did the job as well.
“We kept the foot on the accelerator, kept the concentration levels up, and that’s something we’ve been working on since day one.”
Wind and rain made an uncomfortable day for bowlers.
But Hoppers handled the conditions much better than its opposition.
“The wind was blowing everyone’s hat off, it was affecting the bowls, so you really had to concentrate hard on your game,” Andrew said.
“It was really hard to play and I give them a lot of credit for the way they played the conditions.
“I was really proud of them.”
John Robertson’s rink was the talk of the club on Saturday night after a 30-9 dismantling of their Sunshine City opponents. Robertson started the game impressively and never let up.
“Instead of slacking off at the end, they kept going for the whole game,” Andrew said.
Andrew was comfortably up 21-12, while Dennis Hewitt (25-22) and Bill Weir (22-21) made it a clean sweep.
Weir had the rest of his teammates on a knife’s edge on the last end.
“He only got in front on the last end,” Andrew said.
“It was pretty exciting because we were all standing there watching him play his last bowl.”
Hoppers are now oozing confidence ahead of their trip to Altona Sports.
But there are no illusions about the difficulties of the assignment that sits in front of them.
“That will be a big test for us,” Andrew said.
“They’re sitting above us on the ladder and we’ll get to see how good we are.
“We’re not going out there thinking we’re going to beat them easily.
“But if we play well again, we’ve got a good chance,” he said.
