Bundy Buck Trend and Go Back-to-Back with Victory on Rocky Soil

It was classic case of so near yet so far for the local squad at the Leichhardt Park Table Tennis Centre last Saturday night when the annual contest between the Rockhampton and Bundaberg clubs was played out.  

A new trophy named the Bulls versus Bears Shield was started last year and the inaugural victor was Bundy when the matches were staged at the Rum City. This new shield will cover the next quarter of a century or so after the initial award, the Trevor White Shield was in place for the first twenty-five years of this inter-club fixture and the Eric Cree Shield that lasted for the following twenty-six years ended two years ago as there was just no more room left for the engraver.

With visitors being the titleholder, they were keen for a ‘two-peat’ something they have not achieved since the 2001-2002 era. From the start of this year’s proceedings, it was obvious that Bundy was fielding some very strong teams of the six required to fill the courts at Rocky. Whilst the home-squad went into the contest confident of a win on home ground the visitors proved to be just too strong on four of the courts and the shield returned to the Rum City for another year.

As for the closeness of the contest, in yet another situation this annual competition often turns on was the fact that the last match to come to conclusion was the one that Rocky had a strong chance of winning and if this would have occurred the team scores would have stood at three apiece thus forcing a count-back on rubbers won to determine the victor. As it turned out even if the hosts had won this particular clash they would not have won enough rubbers to force the visitors to leave the spoils of victory in the Beef City.

The match which gained all the focus towards the conclusion was the division two encounter where Bundy’s Kane Chantarat, Lincoln Carter and Janiru Hewamadduma prevailed over Rocky’s Nick Green, Judd Carr and James O’Sullivan 6/5 when young Hewamadduma fell over the line versus Green 12-10 in the deciding fifth set. At five-all this was certainly a pressure situation for both players and a strong contingent of spectators rode every point.

The top division show-down saw the home side of Matthew Pettett, and Joel and Dane Coughlan withstand a serious challenge from Brett Fourro, Ha Bui and Braydon Chapman by seven rubbers to four with Pettett leading the way with three singles wins without dropping a set. As expected, there were some exceptional plays in this match as well as the encounter in division-2.

In division three the visiting contingent of Lorraine Fourro, Peter Spratley and Dave Delpratt, who are all very well known to the locals, had too many aces to defeat Glen McDonald, Ann-Louise Stewart, Jakob Baker and Joel Gifford by seven rubbers to four. A surprise in this clash was that Fourro failed to win any singles despite reports she has been playing well lately and that was one bonus for the locals. Unfortunately, Rocky was unable to pick up a win in either of the doubles ties and this potentially made a big difference to the result. Spratley played particularly well for the visitors and he was well supported by Delpratt.  

Bundaberg conjured a big 8/3 victory in fourth division after the locals were looking good based on recent performances. Rashed Aziz, Travis McDermid and Reinhard Lot for the victors just had too many answers for local hopes Warun Wilkinson, Monica Deeth and Geoff Geddes.

The local side of Pam and Allan Clarke and junior Cooper Bulow in division-5 kept Rocky in the race with a very solid 8/3 win over the combination of Merry Sheather, Deleece McDonald, George Josipovic and Iian Stimson with the locals each winning two of their three singles bouts, some with tight score-lines.   

Jeff Jordan, Julien and Oliver Wright and Hilton Kane made up the local team in sixth division and the visiting outfit of Scott Fourro, Sithuki Hewamadduma, Thomas Ross and Heather Bourke put a number on the locals recording a heavy 9-2 victory when their only successes came from the two doubles ties.