Sport
24 September, 2026
Bowls News - Big Weekend!
It was a huge week of bowls in Gilgandra with multiple events, including the Windmill Triples.
Contributed
Wow! What a great three days of bowls at Gilgandra with the visit from Glenbrook, the Windmill Triples and the Jeffrey 'Bulldog' Irvin Shield.
On Friday, September 18, we played the Mountains versus the Plains.
The Gilgandra teams won the biannual event and maintain the shield until we return to Glenbrook next year to challenge once again.
We had 36 players from Glenbrook, the largest contingent ever to come out to Gilgandra.
This year we had the added bonus of live You Tube coverage of our windmill Triples tournament.
A big thank you to Benny Two Shoes he showcased our town, and the good country hospitality. Thanks Benny.
We all enjoyed a weekend of live music. Great bowls and company as there were 30 teams of three bowlers.
The winners of the tournament were Dylan Marchant, Shaun Marchant and Evan Kew. Well done boys.
Second place was the G Knight-skipped team from Bourke. Third place was the McMullen-skipped team (Dubbo Macquarie), fourth place went to the Mick Jeffrey-skipped team from Glenbrook and fifth place was Macca from Glenbrook’s team and Gilgandra bowler Noel Raines’ side was sixth.
After the completion of the competition bowls on Sunday, September 20, the most coveted award of the weekend was played for being the Jeffrey ‘Bulldog’ Irvin Shield.
With so much bowls played over the previous four days it was great to have 26 bowlers participate in this event.
One bowler who certainly did do a fair bit of participating over the four days was the legendary Bruce Parker.
At 91 years young Parky played a total of 96 ends of bowls and also backed up to compete in the spider at the end of the day and gained 2nd place in this event. Well done Parky!
The winners of this year’s Bulldogs Shield were Mick Jeffrey (Glenbrook) and a couple of local bowlers being Maxine Elsom and Lloyd Gwyn who all combined very well.
Roger Irvin was on hand to present the shield. The highlight of the afternoon was in no doubt the $1060 which was raised for the Gilgandra and District Cancer Fundraisers.
A big thank you to all who volunteered over the weekend, cooking, bar staff and bowling.
We also extend thanks to the barbecue king Bob Rogers and our sponsors for all their contributions, including major sponsor Coffey Engineering.
On Saturday, September 12, Dylan Marchant made short work of David Jones in the first round of the A-grade singles.
Dylan had the bowls on a string today and Dave says it was all going to be over in an hour. Dylan actually took one hour and 16 seconds according to Dave.
Well played Dylan.
On Sunday, September 13, more first round games of A-grade singles were played.
Noel Raines defeated Michael Roach 25-8, Blake defeated Shaun Marchant 25-11 and Trevor Briese defeated Evan Kew 25-14.
Social bowls followed on Sunday, September 13, with 15 players participating the winners on the day were Noel Raines and Jill Hankin who defeated visitors Noel and Gladys 12 ends to four.
The club donated the green fees on the day to Dollar for Dusty, and other people made contributions across the day.
At Gilgandra, more than $210 was put towards that wonderful cause. Good on you Dusty, it is a remarkable effort for a boy so young.
Dollar for Dusty was engineered and achieved by the remarkable Warren 12-year-old Dusty Langby.
Dusty walked from Warren to Canberra, more than 500km, to raise more than $500,000 for Little Wings, which has been matched by the Australian government to eventually raise more than $1 million to help fund paediatric care for kids in the bush.
Thanks to all those who showed up for the working bee recently the shade covers look great.
