Ladywell win first Ron Hams Bowls Cup match of the season

Ladywell were narrowly beaten in the Ron Hams Bowls Cup final in 2025, so they're hoping to go one better this year. And they kicked off this season's campaign with a Round Robin match, away at Dulwich Park.

The Ron Hams Cup format involves a singles, a pair and a triples match all played on the same green at the same time. And in the Round Robin stage, the winning club on each rink gains two points and when all the socres are combined, the winning club overall gains an extra four points.

In the singles match, Ladywell's representative was Club Captain, Phil Welch. The green was playing a lot heavier than all the Ladywell players are used to, so it took a bit of time to adjust, but Phil started by gaining a single on the opening end. His Dulwich Park opponent responded with a score of two on the following end to take a one shot lead, but Phil was already finding his touch and he retained the jack for the next seven ends, by which time he'd stretched his lead to 12-2. The Dulwich Park player scored a single on the tenth end, but Phil responded with two single shot gains on the next two ends to go 14-3 up. Once more his opponent hit back with two single shots of his own, before Phil gained another single to leave the score at 15-5. A single shot for his opponent was answered with a two-shot gain for Phil, leaving him within touching distance of the winning score of 21. But his opponent hit back once again, scoring three on the 18th end and another single on the 19th to reduce the deficit to 17-10. But Phil responded superbly with the four shots he needed over the following three ends, to secure victory by 21-10.

The Ladywell pair of Norman Lewis and Skip, Robert Dunn started very strongly in their 18-end match, scoring three on the first end and an additional four on the following end to race into a 7-0 lead. But their opponents cut that deficit over the following three ends, leaving the score at 7-5 to Ladywell after five ends. Norman and Robert extended their lead with a score of two on the sixth end, but the three ends leading up to the break saw the Dulwich Park team fight back to tie the scores at 9-9 after nine ends. The home team continued that form after the break, with single shot gains on the first three ends after tea to go into the lead for the first time in the match. But a score of three for Ladywell on the 13th evened up the scores once again at 12-12. It was turning into a tight match, with both teams playing some excellent bowls as they vied to gain the upper hand. The 14th end saw Dulwich Park take a single shot lead, but Ladywell cancelled that out with a single of their own on the 15th, so with three ends left it was all to play for. But the 16th end saw a decisive move by Ladywell, with a gain of three shots. And despite the home team narrowing the gap to two shots on the penultimate end, Norman and Robert played a perfect final end to gain another three shots and win the match 19-14.

In the 18-end triples match, the Ladywell team of Merlin Ramdawar, Terrie Askew and Skip, Adrian Wratten conceded two shots on the opening end, but hit back strongly with a score of four on the following end. They extended their lead with single shot gains on the next two ends, before their Dulwich Park opponents scored three shots on the fifth end to cut Ladywell's lead to one point. But over the following four ends leading up to the break, the Ladywell team gained a significant advantage, scoring seven points without reply to move ahead 13-5 at tea. They continued to stretch their lead after the break, scoring single shots on the 10th and 1th ends, before Dulwich Park pulled a shot back on the 12th. Ladywell added to their advantage once again with a single shot on the 13th, before their opponents began to fight back gaining two shots on the 14th and a further two on the 15th, leaving the score at 16-10 with three ends to play. The Ladywell team rallied to gain a single shot on the 16th end and this proved enough of a buffer, as the Dulwich Park team could only add single shots on each of the final two ends, to hand Ladywell a 17-12 victory.

This gave Ladywell six points for three wins. And with a comfortable overall victory by 57-36, they also picked up the additional four points, giving them a perfect start in this season's Cup campaign.