Coco Club lawn bowling center in Pattaya was pleased to hold the final preparation competition last weekend for the Thai national team before they travel to take part in a tournament in Brunei on 22nd January.
The competition was based on the format for Brunei and pitched the ten best players against 10 extremely good club players from Holland, England, Scotland and Australia, some of whom were and are national champions with a lot of experience.
Sakon Wannapong of the Sports Authority of Thailand (centre) poses with the Thai national lawn bowling team.
The first round of pairs and triples ended all square at 4 points each and the last round of the morning singles and foursomes saw a well balanced 8 all draw. After lunch the oldies pulled ahead in the reverse pairs and triples to lead 14-10 and the Thais were woken up. Songsin pulled an amazing win in the singles while Sue, On, Thong and Nok coasted to a big win in the foursomes, leaving it all square at 14-14 and 2 matches left to finish.
Frank dug out a win to leave the Inters 16-14 up and just the top Thai men’s team were left with a chance to make a tie. They were 10-5 down, then 10-8 and 11 -8 needing 4 shots on the last end to take the game and draw the match. It was the last bowl of the last end that did it to take a win 12-11 and draw the match at 16-16.
The bonus for the Thai team was that they took the match on count back by just 8 shots (192 -184) from 220 ends of bowls and over 2,600 bowls played.
We wish the Thai players well in their upcoming tournament.
