20 January, 2017
In the last match of the day here at Potters Resort, Greg Harlow and Amy Stanton were up against Andy Thomson MBE and partner Janice Gower. In the all English exchange the first set saw an on form Stanton leading against Gower and it was Stanton that was able to get the better of Gower on most ends to start with. But it was the skips of Thomson and Harlow that then had to fight to bring in the bowls to the final score on the end and here it was Harlow that was just on fire, no matter what Thomson did Harlow did better, the first set went to Harlow and Stanton 2-7.
Into the second set and things started to hot up as both Gower and Thomson got into the groove and again it was Harlow that proved to be the King of the rink as he played some incredible timing shots with maximum results, but even with this the set was not guaranteed to anyone. With Thomson & Gower now playing well the scoreline was 3 all in the 5th end. Into the 6th and with the Thomson & Gower looking as if they were about to take a decent score it was again Harlow that played an outstanding shot to turn the head around and take a single to go 4-3 up. Into the final end again Thomson and Gower were looking as if they might just pip into the final post to force a tie break but again Harlow played an outstanding bowl to leave Thomson with a very difficult and almost impossible shot to get the 2 they needed for a tie-break and that proved to be the case so the second set went to Harlow and Stanton. They now face Alex Marshall and Katy Smith in the second of the Mixed Pairs Semi Finals on Sunday 22nd.
Harlow said “I had to play a lot of big bowls to get that win. But that’s the way it goes. You don’t expect to get easy games against opposition like Andy and Janice so Amy and I were just delighted to win through”.
Spectators on the internet will be able to watch all of this live on youtube.com/worldbowlstour.