Nationals 2025 Wrap: Open Sides Championships
After a successful practice day on Wednesday, our Open Sides commenced on Thursday, November 20 at Devonport Bowls Club in their Australian Sides Championship campaign. Our players faced a chilly 15 degrees (that feels more like 9), but fortunately Victorians are made for cold and challenging conditions.
Open Men
Our Men’s Team started this morning with a challenging match – the NSW blues. Despite two rink wins, the team were deafeated 49-61. The afternoon went much smoother with a 24 shot win over SA.
Round 3 on Friday morning started well with a triumphant win over WA. Friday afternoon saw a very narroq defeat by QLD 57-62 (Lynch’s rink up).
Saturday saw the men back in form with an 18 shot win over TAS, followed by a second afternoon win over ACT 67-48. Round 7 on Sunday morning saw a blitzing win over NT 93-32 for a total of 5 wins and third place overall.
Congratulations to debut skip Nathan Lynch who won player of the Series and also Best Performing Rink for their undefeated run along with Bryce Young, Dane McKinnon and Tyson Cromie.
Open Women
Our Open Women’s Side started Round 1 with a tough match against NSW with all rinks down. The women regrouped for their next round to come home with a strong 77-44 win against SA.
Friday morning saw the women off to a strong start with a fierce battle against WA, eventually emerging victorious in the last couple of ends 63-59. Friday afternoon the women continued their winning streak to best QLD 68-40.
The weekend brought successive wins for the women against TAS (60-55), ACT (62-60) and NT (73-46). An incredible 6 wins, 1 loss sees the women going home with silver medals as overall Runners Up in the Marj Morris Trophy. Congratulations to Brooke Edwards who was awarded our Player of the Series.
Milestone Moments
During the Australian Sides Championships we have a number of bowlers reaching significant milestones for The Big V
- Matt Flapper who reached a record-breaking 442 games for Victoria on Friday morning. This is both the all-time record for most State Representative matches in Victoria but also in Australia.
- Cass Millerick reached her 50 game milestone on Friday morning.
- Bryce Young achieved his 50 game milestone on Friday afternoon.
- Brett Mahoney achieved his 100 game milestone on Saturday morning.
- James Pearce reached his 50 game milestone on Saturday afternoon.
- Sammy Atkinson reached her 50 game milestone on Sunday morning.
What’s Next
The 2025 Australian Championships kicks off today with the Mens and Ladies triples. We wish our very best to our Women’s representatives Mel Allen, Kelly McKerihen and Lisa Phillips from Sandbelt and our Men’s representatives Nick Wallace, Dale Verhagen and Mike Pearce from Mornington Peninsula.
Article last updated 9.02am AEDT on 24/11/2025
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Go Vics!
