South Perth was represented in two groups of fours at the Australian Open on Thursday.
At Tugun, Ken Pride, midweek player Peter Holmes (from Cervantes), Greg Reagan and Neale Griffin began with a narrow loss (12-15) to the NSW side of H Sato, I Ossher, G Spears and G Lester. They followed that effort up with another close defeat (17-19) to another NSW team, S Barclay, B Farrell, D Rodgers and T Blow. Maintaining their run of tight games, the South Perth side recorded a one-shot victory (16-15) over kiwis S Lapslie, B McPartlin, S Lilley and A Bowden.
At Nerang, the side of Scott Walker, Ryan Havercroft, Adrian Durrant and Glenn Pauling faced a tough task in their first game. A slow (0-7) start would be costly and though recovering to be tied with two ends to play, the Miller side fell to K Wessels, M Lewis, M Clarke and South African bowls legend Neil Burkett (10-15). A win in their second match, (15-13) over D Christie, J Christie, N Gosley and J Corless revived hopes of progressing to the knockout phase. As the last game played out it quickly became evident that winning the section was out of the question and so the foursome set about trying to improve their shot differential. A win (19-8) over Victorians G Cornish, P Kelly, G Lasky and B Richards clenched second place in the section, but not enough shots up to progress as a lucky loser.