It has been a quiet spell over Christmas with very few friendly fixtures at Madeira Bowls Club, but there has been plenty of bowling going on with the start of all the internal competitions.

The ladies’ section at Maderia did have a special match against another club and they started off the new year with a bang. Last Saturday, they played their fourth round fixture of the national competition for the Yetton Plate against Moonfleet 2000 (Weymouth).

This is a knock-out competition with two teams playing at home and two away, so both clubs faced long journeys through the worst of January weather and in the dark to make the 10am start time.

As with most of the ladies’ representative games this year, which have been closely fought, this was no exception. Each club won one rink at home and one away. Both Madeira’s winning rinks achieved impressive plus 15s, which went a long way towards the final winning score for Madeira of 80 shots to 72.

It was a great team effort which has earned them a place in the quarter finals to be played on the 29th January. This will be against Whiteknights, Reading, and it is expected that it will be played at a neutral venue in the Bristol area. Very well done everyone.

There have been a couple of friendly fixtures, both against Isca. Before Christmas, there was an exceedingly closely fought mixed triples, with no more than two shots separating the teams in any of the three games.

However, Isca won two of the three rinks and overall by 49 shots to 46. Roger Williams, playing with Janet Grundy and Danny Doran, were the winning Madeira team. The other equally tight fixture against Isca last week was ladies only and played over two triples. Each team had a winning rink by two shots for a draw of 31 all.

Jean Rainton, playing with Janet Grundy and Penny Preece, continued their impressive run in the County Triples with a win against Dawlish of 24 shots to 9.