Silver: Moama Steamers finished last week’s Bowls Premier League as runner-up. Photos: Aidan Davis, Bowls Australia
Sydney Lions became the most successful franchise in Bowls Premier League history on Friday evening when it beat Moama Steamers at Moama Bowling Club to claim its fourth grand final win in the elite lawn bowls competition.
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Last week’s 14th staging of the BPL was dominated all week by the home team, Moama, but it lost the grand final in a tie-breaker to the team owned by Club Mount Lewis, in Sydney’s south west.
Former world number one Steve Glasson coached the team of Karen Murphy, Ben Twist and Aaron Wilson. They beat the Steamers combination of Kevin Anderson, Natasha Van Eldik and Ryan Bester.
Title number four: Sydney Lions’ winning combination - (kneeling front) Steve Glasson, Aaron Wilson, Ben Twist and Karen Murphy, celebrate with Club Mount Lewis franchise owners and Lions supporters.
It was Murphy’s fourth title win and the third for Twist, while the Steamers had to be content with their fourth runners-up title.
The Steamers have made the most grand finals in BPL history, having also won the event twice.
Wound up: Ryan Bester winds up to put the jack in the ditch for Moama Steamers.
The Steamers qualified as the top seed for the finals, with a 14-4 record at the end of the opening 18 rounds.
The only team they failed to beat during the preliminary bouts was Sydney Lions.
Bester, who enjoyed an exceptional BPL14 campaign, said he expected the Steamers to be up there, but maybe not 14-4.
Sign of the times: A Melbourne Extreme official lets everyone know that there will be a change of personnel at the start of the next end. It is part of the no stop approach to the game of BPL.
“This is a first. In this competition to be 13 and two doesn’t happen too often,” he said.
Bester has played with the Moama franchise in 13 editions of the BPL, the Queensland-based Canadian champion saying the franchise had an incredible history in the tournament.
That’s two shots: Moama Bowling Club’s Graeme Hinsley signals a two-shot win as marker on his rink early in the tournament.
"We made the grand final two of the last three events. We have a pretty good record,’’ he said.
"We’ve made most finals series as a franchise. This will be our ninth time out of 13 making the finals.“
Moama lost to the Lions in a round-eight tie-breaker and then again in round 16 — in straight sets.
The only other teams they lost to in the remaining rounds were the Tweed Heads Ospreys and Perth Suns, that loss coming in the final qualifying round.
The King and I: A digital measure is used by the umpire to make a decision on the winning bowl in the Steamers and Pirates match on Wednesday evening.
The Ospreys, champions in three of the past four BPL events, lost in the elimination final to Alex Marshall’s Brisbane Pirates. The Suns didn’t make the finals.
The Moama franchise will now focus on the Ultimate Bowls Challenge, which will be held at Dandenong Bowling Club in April.
Hot shot Kevin: Kevin Anderson and his Brisbane Pirates opponent complete a measure in the Wednesday night TV rink match.
The second event will be at Moama in December.
Moama is one of 28 teams involved in the competition, including teams from overseas.
They will battle it out for a record prize pool of $500,000.
Surrounded: The quality of bowling at the BPL is obvious in this photo, which shows the jack surrounded by four touching bowls. The end was declared a no result because of the proximity of the four bowls.
Sydney Lions won the final with a scoreline of, Set one: Moama 11-Sydney 5. Set two: Sydney 7-Moama 4. Tie-breaker: Sydney 1-Moama 0.
Finals-bound: Moama lawn bowls star Kevin Anderson in the warm-up for the Steamers’ win against Brisbane Pirates on Wednesday night.
