Silver: Moama Steamers finished last week’s Bowls Premier League as runners-up, the franchise appearing in its sixth grand final in the 14th edition of the $125,000 competition. Moama Bowling Club hosted the five-day event, which culminated on Friday evening. Photos: Aidan Davis, Bowls Australia
Title number four: Sydney Lions’ winning combination - (kneeling front) Steve Glasson, Aaron Wilson, Ben Twist and Karen Murphy, celebrate with Club Mount Lewis franchise owners and Lions supporters.
Sydney Lions became the most successful franchise in Bowls Premier League history on Friday evening when it beat Moama Steams at Moama Bowling Club to claim its fourth grand final win in the elite lawn bowls competition.
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Last week’s 14th staging of the BPL was dominated all week by the home team, Moama, but it lost the final in a grand final tie-breaker to the team owned by Club Mount Lewis, in Sydney’s south-west.
Former world number one Steve Glasson coached the team of Karen Murphy, Ben Twist and Aaron Wilson. They beat the Steamers combination of Kevin Anderson, Natasha Van Eldik and Ryan Bester.
It was Murphy’s fourth title win and the third for Twist, while the Steamers had to be content with their fourth runners-up title.
The Steamers have made the most grand finals in BPL history, having also won the event twice.
The Steamers qualified as the top seed for the finals, with a 14-4 record at the end of the opening 18 rounds.
The only team they failed to beat during the preliminary bouts was Sydney Lions.
Moama lost to the Lions in a round-eight tie-breaker and then again in round 16 — in straight sets.
The only other teams they lost to in the remaining rounds were the Tweed Heads Ospreys and Perth Suns, that loss coming in the final qualifying round.
The Ospreys, champions in three of the past four BPL events, lost in the elimination final to Alex Marshall’s Brisbane Pirates. The Suns didn’t make the finals.
The Moama franchise will now focus on the Ultimate Bowls Challenge, which will be held at Dandenong Bowling Club in April.
The second event will be in Moama in December.
Moama is one of 28 teams involved in the competition, including teams from overseas.
They will battle it out for a record prize pool of $500,000.
Sydney Lions won the final with a scoreline of, Set one: Moama 11-Sydney 5. Set two: Sydney 7-Moama 4. Tie breaker: Sydney 1-Moama 0.
Host with the most: Bowls Australia chief executive Neil Dalrymple presents an appreciation plaque to Moama Bowling Club bowls committee chair Kath Wastell at the presentation ceremony of BPL14 on Friday.
Thanks Moama: Kevin Anderson, after accepting his silver medal, gave the many supporters of the Steamers the thumbs up after the team narrowly missed out on a third Bowls Premier League title.
