It was lucky round number 13 for Yarraville-Footscray in the Bowls Victoria metro premier division.
The newly promoted Bulldogs finally broke their drought in the most unlikely fashion, upsetting premiership contenders Moonee Ponds by 15 shots at Francis Street on Saturday.
PICTURE GALLERY: Yarraville-Footscray v Moonee Ponds
Bulldogs coach Wayne Roberts told the Weekly that a win was never too far away, but he didn’t envisage it would come against the powerful Ponds. “Even though it was our first win, there have been a lot of games where we’ve been in it until the three-quarter stage and fallen over at the last hurdle,” he said.
“The last game before Christmas, we were in front of Altona at the break, and the break worked against us because it got them off the green and they re-grouped when the momentum was going our way.
“We’ve only really had two shockers for the year, one against Clayton, the other against Moonee Ponds in the first round. All of the other games were there to be won or we’ve fallen over by 10-or-so shots.
“The first win is the hardest to get.”
Yarraville-Footscray took advantage of the Ponds’ controversial decision to send a handful of first-team regulars down to play in the seconds.
The Ponds’ second side plays in division 2, already a two-tier drop for players who don’t make the final cut for the premier side. Should that side be relegated, it would have significant consequences by creating too large a gulf between the first and second sides.
They were desperate to strengthen their survival bid in division 2 with a much-needed win and chose to roll the dice against Yarraville-Footscray in what could prove to hinder their chances of a premier division home final.
Roberts had no issue with the Ponds’ decision to stack the seconds and didn’t see it as a disrespectful move.
“They rang me on Tuesday to let us know what was going on,” he said.
“I said, ‘That’s fine, you’ve got to do the right thing by your club and I totally understand’, because they’re in a situation where they’re a premier side and their next side is division 2, so if they lost that side to division 3 their own structure would be no good. The players who came up were all good players.”
Yarraville-Footscray led overall from go to whoa, but the four rinks were split two apiece on the day. The deciding rinks were thumping victories to Roberts (31-11 and Alan Dove (28-9).
“We had a good day, one out of the box,” Roberts said of his side on the whole. “We just fired up at the right time.”
Yarraville-Foostcray will be hunting consecutive wins when Bundoora RSL rolls into town on Saturday. Meanwhile, Altona softened up Bundoora with a 92-62 hammering on the road on Saturday.
The A’s have moved to within 12 points of the top four.
