Melbourne's Adrian Bates and David Moloney confirmed they will be back to defend their City of Orange Golden Eagle Classic Pairs title in 2020, after claiming their maiden win in a thrilling decider on Thursday afternoon.
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The Bundoora pairing claimed the $4,000 winner's cheque by edging out Baradine's Rob McLean and Jeremy Johnstone 19-14 in a nail-biting decider at Orange City Bowling Club, one that went all the way down to the last shot of the 18th and final end.
They didn't hide their pleasure after the victory, nor their exhaustion, but made a point of immediately saying they're locked in to return for next year's 52nd edition of the prestigious tournament.
"Absolutely we'll be back, and we'll be bringing more players from Melbourne with us," Moloney, competing for the second time, fired.
"It's been an awesome week, everyone's been great so of course we'll be back," Bates, in his first Golden Eagle appearance, said.
"We wouldn't travel eight-and-a-half hours to have a social game of bowls, and the win makes it all worth it," Moloney added.
Although it's a far cry from a blowout anyway the five-shot decider margin didn't reflect the back-and-forth nature of the affair, with the lead changing hands a number of times throughout, four times through ends 10 to 15 in fact.
Through the 11th the clash was locked at 9-all but Bates and Moloney actually looked to have a chance to pull away after a four-shot 12th, from which they took a 13-9 lead.
But the Baradine pair wiped that out with a four-shot end of their own in the 13th, before picking up another in the 14th to take back the lead.
Bates and Moloney produced another big end in the 15th, claiming three shots and picking up one more to move to a 17-14 lead and rocket into the box seat with just two ends to play.
Again McLean and Johnstone fought back though, they were in shape to pick up three shots in the penultimate end but Bates nailed a gutsy drive to kill the end, before Moloney landed a pinpoint bowl in the replay to claim extend that margin by one.
Nerves kicked in a little bit for the Bundoora pair in the final end though, as they were looking for cover McLean and Johnstone had four shots at one stage and the potential for extra ends looked very real.
Again Moloney stood up in the clutch though, taking those shots away with his final bowl and actually picking one up himself.
With the last bowl of the decider McLean had a chance to knock Moloney's shot away and send the clash to extra ends or even secure an unlikely win, but it drifted just wide.
"It was nervy," Moloney admitted.
"Towards the end, yeah, it was just a thought of 'hold on'," Bates added.
"We didn't get off to the greatest start in that last end," Moloney continued.
"All we needed to do was just put one bowl in the head and they'd have to try and get it out so it was just about trying to get that ideal shot."
"Being four shots up helped, it was just about taking their shots out with the last bowl and take the game away completely."
Bates and Moloney actually proved to be giant-killers of sorts on their way to the title, and recovered from a slow start too.
They drew their first preliminary clash and lost their second, before picking up three straight wins to qualify for the finals with the competition's fifth-best record.
They knocked off second seeds Nathan Boyers and Shaun May in the final eight, winning 16-14, before taking down top seeds Gerard Harkins and Samuel Pryor by four shots in the semi-finals.
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