Tasmania vs Victoria Test starts tomorrow
This Sunday, Tasmania will welcome Victoria to the Spreyton Bowls Club to contest a five test series, with the Men and Women battling it out for their own French Holbrook shield. The first test will be played Sunday afternoon starting at 1:30pm, whilst the other two days of play will see two test matches in a day, starting at 9am and 1:30pm on Monday and Tuesday.
Last year in Victoria, the home team were victorious in both competitions but they haven’t had things all their own way in recent years.
Of the last six meetings, our women have won twice, in 2010 and 2013/14 but Victoria have won the last two encounters. Due to the World Championships, Tasmania will be without spearhead Rebecca Van Asch and Victoria will be without their own star in Carla Krizanic. This will give other players an opportunity to step up and stake their claim for future representation. Making her debut will be Jean Claridge from the Scottsdale Bowls club and returning to the team and going straight into the skip’s position will be Bree Mabb. Both Mabb & Courtney Hobbs will both bring a youthful exuberance to the skips position, whilst Lyn Triffitt will bring experience, a strong combination to have and hopefully all three can be playing at their best. The team is as follows;
E Sesara, D Harman, H Keen & B Mabb (S)
M Zoon, J Knight, D Lee & L Triffitt (S)
J Claridge, A Venn, K Saunders & C Hobbs (S)
Their opposition will line up as follows;
S Priest, K Whitehead, G Edwards & B Edwards (S)
B Edwards, T Spence, R McMahon & N Shortis (S)
A Bruggy, J Nevill, M Gibson & T Brodie (S)
Congratulations to Mikayla Gibson, the ex-Tasmanian who will be playing in the Victorian side.
On the Men’s side off things it has also been the Tasmanian team who have won their encounter two of the last 6 times. The boys will be keen to show that they can match it with the Victorians, who will be without Aaron Wilson whilst he is on International duty. For Tasmania, Lochie Sims will be making his debut, whilst Chris Dudman makes a return to the line-up. Both players have been in great form over the recent year and should add some very consistent bowls to the team. Lee Schraner will be keen to play well against his ex-state, with Mark Nitz and Michael Sims skipping the other two rinks, the Tassie men will be there abouts. Often in a series like this, Tasmania will need to win a couple of close games to be in with a shot heading into the last day. If a big loss occurs, they need to let it slide and treat every test individually. The line-ups for both teams will be;
Tasmania
S Summer, J Brown, R McMullen & L Schraner (S)
A Johns, C Dudman, A Page & M Sims (S)
B Gibson, L Sims, P Smith & M Nitz (S)
Victoria
D McKinnon, B Orr, D Fisher & M Flapper (S)
C Hanley, B Loughlin, J Corless & N McIntyre (S)
L Garlick-Adams, J Rudd, N Wilson & W Roberts (S)
Best of luck to all players and hopefully Tasmania can start both first tests with a win.
By David Genford
