FIELD PLACE POWER TO NATIONAL TITLE

They are Jean Meneely, Freda Linberry and Wendy Davies. Not only did they prove themselves the best out of 174 triples who entered from Sussex. Not only the best of the 3,439 entries from across the whole country. And not only did they dump on the wayside national indoor singles champion Carol Ashby, 2002 commonwealth gold medallist Gill Mitchell, young current international Lynne Whitehead, and world bowls squad player Jean Baker.

They steamrollered it. To become champions they had to win 13 consecutive matches. Seven in Sussex '” a minefield, home or away, on greens from good, to bad through indifferent. And then six at Leamington in the National Finals against the best and most hard-nosed the country had to offer.

And once at Leamington, not one of their six opposing teams found it possible to live with Field Place the full distance of a match. Five resigned before the final end, and the others Sele Farm from Hertforshire, still played the 18th and final end despite needing a virtually impossible score of eight just to tie their quarter-final and force an extra end.

That's class demonstrated when it really matters across the three days of the Triples Finals. It was no more than they deserved, once they realised they were playing well at the same time and were managing to sustain it.

Only once were they in a spot of bother but that scare was wiped out when Davies calmly saved a lie of six down in a head to keep the jack against Sele Farm. Their winning scores were 14-10, 25-7, 24-5, 19-10, 18-12 and 20-9 in the final.

The final was against Blackwell from Derbyshire, who were Whitehead, Pauline Marples, who skipped Blackwell to the same title two years ago, and this time as skip, Jean Baker, the bronze medallist in Commonwealth Games (singles, Malaysia 1998), World Bowls (fours, England 1996) and Australian Open (pairs, 2000).

Field Place led 8-2 after five ends. From 8-7, they won the next four ends to stand 13-7 ahead. Then, after conceding Baker's sixth and last winning end, 2 3 2 made it 20-9 and Baker's towel landed in the ring with an end still to play.

The last Sussex players to win a national title were Kingsway, from Hove, in the 1989 fours. In 1970, Homefield Park's quartet of Woodhouse, Marigold, Albury and international Eileen Smith won the fours '” our previous national champions. No Sussex triple had triumphed since 1969.

Field Place have paid their dues as successful bowlers in Sussex. Davies and Linberry have long been a formidable pair, winning county and open titles including this summer's Worthing Women's Open. Meneely, already a solid part of the combination, came to the top in county singles last year.

All have been to the finals before, Davies almost a perennial qualifier, and with Joyce Atyeo at lead, they reached and lost the National Triple final in 1997.

Having scorched in to the triples final last week they confronted the supernatural. And they conquered it. It was Blackwell, a club in north Derbyshire near Alfreton, who had beaten them in the 1997 fours final, Jean Baker at two. It was Blackwell, Baker again, who had stopped Meneely, Val Tamlyn, Linberry and Davies in the second round of the fours this year, just a week earlier

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