The Australia’s women’s triples outfit has endured its first loss of the Delhi Commonwealth Games with Northern Ireland again playing the role of the spoiler.
A day after the women’s pairs suffered a similar fate, Australia’s Sharyn Renshaw, Claire Duke and Julie Keegan were on the receiving end of an 8-8, 2-9 loss to Barbara Logue, Mandy Cunningham and Sandra Bailie.
“It’s nigh impossible to go through an entire campaign without dropping a match,” Keegan said.
“So it’s not the end of the world.
“We’ll try and come out all guns blazing tomorrow and hopefully we can make amends.”
Having entered the match with a perfect 4-0 record, the Australians slipped to second in their section, trailing New Zealand by a solitary shot, but can reclaim top spot when they face Niue in round six.
In the men’s pairs, Mark Berghofer and Aron Sherriff won a crucial hit out with Canada’s Keith Roney and Michael Larue, providing a one game buffer over Scotland and Papua New Guinea, who continue to press for a post-sectional berth.
With places in the medal rounds at a premium, the Australians could ill afford an early loss, and while Sherriff, the world number seven, had an opportunity to seal the match in regulation, he narrowly missed to force a tie-breaker, but then came up trumps.
“It was a tough match,” Sherriff said.
“On paper we’ve got some games coming up that we’d be expected to win, and hopefully we can, but South Africa is also unbeaten and appear to be playing very well.”
The Australians will continue their campaign at the Jawaharlal Nehru Sports Complex tomorrow.
Click here for more information on Australia’s lawn bowls campaign at the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games.
