Tatura's Goulburn Valley Bowls Division midweek division two welcomed the visiting Avenel bowlers with clubs situated fourth and fifth respectively on the ladder for a game in which a win was vital to both teams.
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The game for Tatura was looking ominous when on the 20th end across the board Tatura was down on all three rinks and trailing by six shots 52 to 58. There is no ready explanation for the Tatura turnaround across the remaining ends to play, scoring across all rinks 24 shots to eight to get up on two of the rinks and win overall by 10 shots — 76 to 66 — and most importantly 14 points to two.
Results from other matches also smiled favourably on Tatura's fortunes, with Hill Top, seventh on the ladder, defeating Euroa and allowed Tatura to subsequently replace it in second spot six points clear. Saturday's match coincidently is against Euroa with the winner to secure second spot and meet Shepparton Park in the finals.
Tatura's two winning rinks against Avenel were skipped by Dot Best and Freda Clement, who got home by the same eight-shot margin with Joyce Andrus the only losing rink by six shots. Clement 30 to 22 defeated Jenny Furletti, Best 25 to 17 beat Grace Kenworthy and Andrus lost 21 to 27 against Pam Pedder.
Tatura's Saturday division two side at home to Kyabram had a tough encounter in which it only drew away in the concluding stages. Up by eight shots at the lunch break, scores were marginal with three to four ends to play, but Tatura managed to stabilise and came away with three rinks up and one down to win by 16 shots — 102 to 86. Gaining the 16 points was most advantageous because with top side Tallygaroopna's defeat of second-placed Shepparton Golf, Tatura took over this spot on the ladder. In the final two remaining matches in this season's pennant Tatura will be tested to hold its spot as it meets top dog Tally and fourth-placed Shepparton Park.
Peter Wallis (S), Darryn Carpenter, Bob Bordett and Rod T Kirby were in front all day against Kelvin Hubble winning by 10 shots 25 to 15. Jason Carter and Peter O'Brien had a real battle for the majority of the day as on the 17th end in a low scoring match Kyabram was leading by two shots — 11 to 13 — and had allowed Tatura to score on only six ends. In a complete contrast to the way the match was played to that stage Tatura won six of the next eight ends, outscoring O'Brien's group 12 to 2 and set up an eight-shot victory 23 to 15.
In a high scoring affair John Attwood had an early solid lead 10 to 3 on the seventh, fell away to trail by five shots on the 23rd end and scored seven shots on the final two ends to snatch the match from Don Cook 26 to 24. In an even bigger scoring game Nick Boyd suffered Tatura's only defeat when Ky's Kelvin Beacon won by four shots 32 to 28. Boyd's rink in its loss conceded some big scores which included seven threes and a four.
