Shane Giudice-Nairn skips Batavia quartet with Mike Ford & Jon, Kim Trotter to last 16 at Country Week bowls

Four of the Mid West’s best bowlers were the last men standing from the region after WA’s biggest bowls competition reached the quick-fire knockout stage. The Batavia Bowling League quartet of Shane Giudice-Nairn, Mike Ford and Jon and Kim Trotter were through to the quarter finals after Country Week fours play on Thursday. Giudice-Nairn skipped them past Albany’s Jonathon Davidson 15-10 in the last 16, with Quairading’s Bill Fraser up next. The local quartet had earlier beaten Beacon’s Max Lancaster 14-7 in the round of 32. Giudice-Nairn and Ford were also through to the quarters in pairs, with a tough clash approaching against Quairading’s Vince Hadlow and Graeme Anderson. The deadly Wheatbelt duo had earlier put paid to the chances of the Trotters. They went down in a fighting 11-12 round of 16 loss. Giudice-Nairn and Ford breezed through their bracket in the early stages, making more than 20 shots in each of their first three encounters before running into a stiffer challenge in the quarters. They beat Dalwallinu pair Keith and Steve Carter 26-6 first up before taking down Yunderup’s Adam Danes and Phil Coxon in a 21-10 win and then beating Quairading competitors Stephen Bartlett and Dave Chandler 20-6. Narembeen’s Greg Vaughan and John Currie provided a tougher test in the quarter final, with the end result 14-11. On form to date Giudice-Nairn and Ford look to have the edge over Hadlow’s duo, who were nowhere near as convincing on the scoreboard on their route out of the group. But a knockout tie is not a regular game and anything can happen, so no one will be counting their chickens. The Trotter duo had been good value for their last-16 spot. They edged past Kellerberrin’s Ray Griffiths and Herb McLelland 10-9 in the round of 32, but then made light work of Kondidin’s Gary Biglin and Brad Crisp, dispatching them 20-7. They took down a solid opponent in Middleton Beach’s Jim Robertson and Ian Higgins in the next game, 13-10, before just falling short of a place in the semis.