Craigieburn enters the Bowls Victoria pennant season with a lot of excitement and optimism.
The club endured a patchy 2015-16, with a number of players leaving before the season started and having to juggle renovations to their venue in the lead up to Christmas.
With all of that out of the way, Craigieburn secretary Jeff Sabransky said the club was looking forward to this season.
“It was a nightmare of a season for the club,” he said. “It’s a new season – new club rooms and a new outlook and team. It’ll be a lot easier this year.”
With a positive view on the season ahead, Sabransky said the club was looking at making finals and hopefully contending for the division 2 section 2 premiership.
The side has started the season splitting the opening two rounds. It was disappointing against Moonee Ponds before an impressive win against local rival Broadmeadows on Saturday with a 102 (16)-82 (2) scoreline.
“It was good to get a good win this week, after not such a good week the previous week,” Sabransky said.
“There was extra significance on this week – it was a match we had to win otherwise it would have been tough to make finals with another tough round next week.
“Broadmeadows are a good club and a good side. Every time we play them at home we win – when we play there, we seem to lose.”
Sabransky said the club had managed to retain the playing group from last season, but had added about five players who would play in the firsts team.
Among the inclusions are Max Smith, Steve Hall, Brendan Roeschmann and Matt McMaster.
“We did get some other players into the club as well,” he said.
“The majority of players will come into the ones and make every side better for us.”
In premier division, Bundoora RSL remains without a win after the first two rounds.
On Saturday, RSL proved no match for Yarraville Footscray.
Bundoora took the points in one rink and lost a second by one shot, but was easily beaten in the other two rinks to lose 77 (16)-62 (2).
Bundoora already sits 22 points outside the top four.
In division 1 section 2, RSL (2) beat Kingsbury 97 (17)-60 (1).
Whittlesea had a 72 (16)-67 (2) win against Ivanhoe.
Bundoora and Whittlesea are two of the three teams to win both their opening-round matches.
In division 2 section 3, Bundoora’s third side won 93 (17)-68 (1) against Eltham, Lalor had a 97 (16)-68 (2) win over Heidelberg Golf and Whittlesea’s second team lost to Montmorency.
