THE Island’s bowlers were doing well in the world outdoor championships at the impressive Northfield Centre in Ayr, as the event entered its third day this morning.
The Jersey pairing of Derek Boswell and Allan ‘AQ’ Quémard are currently in third place in their six-team round-robin group, and in line for a place in the second qualifying stage, but the exploits of David Le Marquand’s Jersey trio were making even bigger waves.
With Alan Shaw and Lee Nixon giving good support, Le Marquand had skipped the team to three wins in four matches - including a glorious 18-15 win over a triple from the host country which included the legendary Willie Wood as middle man.
With just one match left to play in the group, the Jersey trio were sitting pretty at the top of the section league table, and were assured of a place in the next stage.
Boswell and Quémard opened their challenge with a disappointing 21-12 defeat at the hands of a pair from the Phillipines, but bounced back to beat Norfolk Island, 29-8 on Saturday afternoon, and consolidated their position with a 29-9 win over the USA.
Yesterday, they took on the might of South Africa, and, although they were defeated, they did well to restrict Donny Piketh and Gerry Baker, who are fast emerging as favourites to win the title, to a 20-15 scoreline.
In the triples, Jersey opened with a confident 25-10 win over Spain, and were desperately unlucky to be held to a 19-19 tie by Zimbabwe, after going into the last end with a four-shots cushion.
Yesterday morning, the boot was on the other foot as they upstaged Scotland’s Jim McIntyre, Willie Wood and David Peacock, who turned a 7-10 deficit in to a 15-10 lead between the 12th and 16th ends, and looked to have the game fairly sewn up with two ends to play.
A treble on the 17th end kept Jersey in contention, and a fantastic count of five on the very last end gave the Channel Islanders a memorable 18-15 victory.
Boswell and Quémard were looking for a good result against Swaziland today to see them through to the next round-robin stage, while the Jersey trio, who were lined up to face Malaysia knowing they were already home and dry.
Quémard, incidentally, was surprised to find himself listed in the official programme as Akkab Qyenard - the result, no doubt, of a slip of the right hand and a dodgy spell check system.
Boswell, meanwhile, was delighted to be back on home soil, his roots being in Renfrew, which is less than forty miles from the Ayr venue.
Article posted on 26th July, 2004 - 12.00am
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