Graham Carney, who has started living up to his early potential, skipped a much improved new bowler in Wal Purvis to defeat the experienced Guyra pairing of Dave Wilcox and John “Jacko” Jackson in the final 8-2 on Sunday afternoon. Graham and Wal defeated fellow club mates Joe Bell and Phil Ross in the semi final 4-3 to advance to the final.

While Dave and Jacko defeated the very strong team of Clayton Rogers (Inverell East) and Stuart Hartigan (West Coffs) by 8-4 to win their way to the final.

Organisers said it was one of the strongest fields assembled for the Sapphire City Pairs in a number of years, which only adds more merit to the achievments of both Graham and Wal.

To qualify for the final all bowlers had to play five games of 16 ends, with the four best performed teams advancing to the semi-finals.

The strength of the field can be tested by the teams that finished just behind the placegetters in Scott Hamilton and John Coxon finishing fifth and the winning combination from the previous two years, Russell Berghofer and Robert Crouch finishing sixth.

There were some strong women’s teams in the open event who performed very well, in particular the pair of Jane Leader and Jan Anderson who were in the prize money, taking out the highest round winners in round two.

In the final round they defeated one of the more fancied sides for the carnival, in Geoff Lockwood and Brad Campbell, who had performed well throughout the weekend and were the highest scorers in round four.

Fuzzy Zimmerman and her husband Frank (Goondiwindi) also took out a round winner, proving that women are no easy beats in these events and their skill levels must be respected.

Results:

Winners; Graham Carney and Wal Purvis

Runners Up; Dave Wilcox and Jacko Jackson