Webbcona defeat Sebastopol to win 2021-2022 Saturday Premier Pennant Title

It’s been a long wait for the green army of Webbcona, but finally after a drought stretching back to its days in the Geelong league, it is back on top of Premier bowls after a crushing win over Sebastopol in Saturday’s grand final.

Dating all the way back to 2005, Webbcona has been near enough, but never quite good enough.

It’s had its trials and has had to build from within to finally taste long overdue success.

The drought came to an end under glorious autumn sunshine at City Oval as it blitzed Sebastopol in the final third of the grand final to run out convincing winners.

Led brilliantly by skippers Ben McArthur, Gary Johnson and Matthew Blackburn, the trio marshalled their troops to a 66-48 triumph setting off wild celebrations for the club.

Up until the 14th end, it looked as though the match was going to go right down to the wire.

Ben McArthur’s team had the edge throughout the contest with Rob Baker holding sway during the match while Johnson and Gannon waged a war of attrition trading ends one-after-another in a tight contest.

The one rink that looked to be in trouble was that of Matthew Blackburn up against Scott Roberts.

But a 14th end turnaround in that match where Roberts saved four shots with a spectacular drive only for Blackburn to pick up four in the very next end transformed the contest.

Those shots allowed Blackburn’s team to recover the lost ground, eventually taking the lead late, but having to settle for a 20-20 draw.

But suddenly Webbcona was back in that match and the momentum gained rubbed off on the other parts of the fast greens as it moved into top gear with McArthur and Johnson going on with the job for the commanding win.

Blackburn said it was one of his proudest moments in the sport.

“It’s unbelievable, I’m just so proud of everyone that’s involved, not just the 12 of us who played, there’s another four who played throughout the year, they’ve all deserved this,” he said.

Blackburn said he felt the game changed momentum over the 14th and 15th ends and he implored his team to ride that change in the match all the way.”

“I actually felt all right after that end got killed, because I thought if we’ve got him playing those kind of shots, we might have them under a bit of pressure.”

“We were down and out there, but we found a way. We could have dropped our head and we knew our moment was coming and we got there.”

Just three weeks ago, Webbcona was in a last-ditch attempt to try and force its way into the finals.

It needed to defeat reigning premier Victoria and hope other results went its way.

On a dreary Ballarat day, that’s exactly what happened after two matches were called off due to the weather.

Webbcona stuck it out and pulled off a memorable 62-51 win which saw it fall into fourth spot.

That day proved to be the start, it wiped Buninyong 67-45 and then showed the win over Victoria was no fluke, winning all three rinks in the 64-50 win.

Another score in-excess of 60 points meant the squads could celebrate over the final three ends.

“I thought about end 19 we were a real chance of enjoying this for that moment,” Blackburn said.

“I’m glad we had about four or five ends that we could sit back and enjoy it.”

The one-sided result was a difficult pill to swallow for the Sebastopol team which until Saturday had been a class above most opponents this season.

The Burra had lost just two matches this season, but knew it faced its biggest challenge in the grand final having survived in both its previous encounters with Webbcona, despite winning just one of the three rinks on offer both times.

Sebastopol skipper Murray Gannon said his team was unable to catch a ride on the Webccona wave in the final few ends.

“They were up and about, just too good,” he said.

“I also think the not having a break (through the finals), which happened to us a couple of years ago allowed them to get the momentum which they kept rolling along.”

“They deserve it, good luck to them. I’m proud of our season, we’ve had a good year, we got ourselves into the final which gives you a chance but they were just too good.”

Gannon said while the club was strong, it would need to start looking at the future.

“There’s probably a couple there now that are getting to that point of retirement,” he said.

“We’ll have some new blood coming in next year, so I’ve no doubt we’ll be around the mix again.”

In Division 1, City Oval rode the momentum gained from Tuesday’s Premier Division victory from with a three rinks to one win over Smeaton.

Many of the same names from Tuesday once again took to the Sebastopol greens with the likes of Chris Smith, Wayne Roberts and Gavin Mann leading their teams in the 85-64 win.

Smeaton was best served by Joel McNaught’s team which had a strong 25-13 win over Benjamin Morris.

Article & picture courtesy of Ballarat Courier