BARRY Romilly Bowls Club 1st team opened their season with a home game against Maesteg Welfare in a Carruthers Shield game.

The A team were playing their second game in the SVLA Cup at Llantwit Major having won their opening game the previous week at Millwood.

The Romilly Club only opened on April 16, therefore it was difficult for Romilly players to get enough practice in readiness for important Cup games coming this early in the outdoor season.

Having had such a successful season in 2015 Romilly will need to be at their very best to maintain their position as top team in the CML and the A Team in their venture into their new division four.

Romilly welcomed Maesteg Welfare to Romilly Park on Saturday, April 30, in their first group game in the 2016 Carruthers Shield on a decent afternoon for bowls, albeit with a cool wind blowing.

The game commenced with the normal trial ends and it was immediately evident that the green was still as heavy, if not heavier, than previous years. Maesteg won the Jack and immediately delivered a minimum length Jack in an attempt to ensure that they were able to reach but to no avail as by the fifth end Romilly had raced to a 30 – 10 lead with all Romilly rinks taking an early advantage.

After the tenth end Romilly were maintaining the advantage of 19 shots but it was the rink skipped by Jeff Wright who was the catalyst for this in front 20 – 4 with the other

Romilly rinks having close games.

As the game continued Romilly had increased their advantage to 29 to 73 – 44 at the end of the 15th with Wright’s rink of Alun Bryan, Roger Jones and Clive Collins outclassing their opponents leading 32 – 4.

The rink skipped by Fred Phillips had also moved ahead leading 17 – 9 but the rinks skipped by Graham Cogbill and Brian Foscolo were losing by one and six respectively. Over the final six ends Romilly maintained their advantage finally winning 97 – 68 with Wright’s rink running away to a 42 – 8 victory, Phillip’s rink of Alan Bannister, Gwynne Rees and Rhodri Phillips battled well to a 20 – 13 success.

Graham Cogbill’s rink of Gary Eastment, Andrew Hatcher and captain Mike Doyle who had been trailing from the tenth end fought back well to score a one and three to tie their game 21 – 21.

The rink of Foscolo, Kelvyn Mills, Terry Bloomfield and Mel Newman were never at their best and were well beaten 14 – 26. Romilly play at Llantwit Major next Saturday in their next Carruthers Shield game at 2.30pm.

The Romilly A team were playing in their second SVLA game on Saturday, April 30, away to Llantwit Major A having beaten Millwood A the previous week.

Romilly got off to a poor start down by 14 at the fifth end 10 – 24. As the game progressed the Romilly players got acclimatised to a better running green than at Romilly Park and at the tenth end had reversed the score to lead by 16 shots 47 – 31.

By the 15th end Romilly had increased their advantage to 35 shots 77 – 42 mainly due to the rinks of Len Jones, Dave Noble, Alfie Woolcock and skip Tony Freeman and Wynne James, Lynne Richards, Mike Gronow and skip Des Bannister ahead by 27 – 5 and 30 – 7 respectively.

Over the final six ends the rinks of Freeman and Bannister maintained their dominance, winning by 28 – 9 and 32 –12 respectively whilst the rink of Bob Wyatt who had a close game throughout managed a three on the final end to win 20 – 18.

Unfortunately the only losing rink was that of captain Howard Jones who lost by five shots. The final score 99 – 63 Romilly taking 12 points to Llantwit’s two.

Having won the SVLA Cup over the past few seasons the "Rom" have got off to a good start winning two from two.