Sport
19 February, 2026
Surge keeps bowls finals hopes alive
The win over St Arnaud in the cut-throat first sem-final at Charlton keeps Country’s finals campaign alive for another week.
STUNNING surge by St Arnaud Country has seen it defeat cross-town rivals in Saturday’s North Central bowls Division 2 finals.
The win over St Arnaud in the cut-throat first sem-final at Charlton keeps Country’s finals campaign alive for another week.
Leading for almost the entire match, and with five ends to be played, St.Arnaud had a sizable 13 shot lead, but faltered badly under pressure, scoring only seven shots to Country Club’s match winning 23 shots.
St.Arnaud’s Wayne Rourke, Tom Amos, Colin Coates and Craig Cheesman down 7-8 after seven ends, won the next six ends taking a 22 -7 lead and they maintained control over Arnold Bond, Tony Coloe, Steven Atkinson and Leigh Watkins. But the Country Club four won an invaluable four shots on the last two ends.
Kerryn Dyke, Paul Micallef, Brian Eccles and Jason Barron had a tight game against Chris Webb, Neil Robinson, Paul Mullins and Jack Jorgenson, and were down by one shot, 17-18 after 19 ends. but the Country Club men stormed home winning five of the last six ends.
Laurie Goodwin, Marie Hufer, Gerald McIntyre and Peter Duncan, were down 4-11, but fought back to be leading Denis Goode, Graham Shaw, Peter Marland and Geoffrey Watts 22-21 at 20 ends. Again Country Club took control winning all of the last five ends and ended winning all three rinks and finishing three shots up on St Arnaud.
In the Division 1 first semi-final, Country fell short against Wedderburn who has started to rediscover some of its early season form.
Country claimed one rink for the day - Trevor McDonald led his quartet well - and finished two shots short of Wedderburn in the final played at St Arnaud.
Steve Zsigmond has retained his St Arnaud Bowling Club men’s singles champion title after defeating Col Marchment in the final. Steve extended his hold of the title he has won for the past three seasons with a decisive win over Marchment 25 –9.
Steve won his first club singles championship in 2014, regained the title in 2022-2023, and has now won it the last three seasons, He had also won the North Central Champion of Champions title in each of these seasons until this year when he was eliminated in the semi-final by Hunter Wingfield,
The announcement of the teams at last Thursday’s St Arnaud Twilight bowls caused some interest when Greg and Anne McNally were picked in teams to play against each other.
And who could have predicted the result. Anne’s team triumphed by no less than 12 shots, with a little help from Gerald McIntyre and Craig Cheesman, to win the Country Kitchen pizzas.
The runners-up were Phil McRae and Clive Hancock nine-shot winners. Third were Tony Marland, Terence Robertson and Rolf Wacker eight shots up.