Izzy Trenorden, club coach and team leader of Sturt I in the winning grand final of Division 3S against Glenelg I on Saturday 21 March 2026, was thrilled with the support from Sturt supporters as well as the smart play by his teammates.
Izzy's Report
Throughout the season we struggled with player unavailability, and it felt good coming into the grand final with what felt like a full-strength side.
The crowd
The Sturt crowd showed up and gosh did we know about it!
That was easily the most electric crowd I’ve ever played in front of.
Hats off and thank you to everyone who came and supported. It felt like there were 3 people from Glenelg and close to 100 from Sturt. Epic.
The conditions
Lockleys' greens were a comfortable 15 seconds but a head and tail wind made each bowl a little trickier to navigate.
Not having many, if any, issues with navigating the wind was the rink of Kim Keane, Stephen Jones, Neville Riddle and Jack Trenorden. Wow, did they have a day out!
How the game unfolded
Their lead after 20 ends meant we were up by about 20 shots overall for most of the day.
However, as games can do, it tightened up with 15 ends to go where Glenelg were within 8 shots after each rink dropped an end consecutively.
A heart-stopping 5 up from Jack's rink soon put the opposition's momentum to bed.
Shane Ettridge played some huge bowls late to nullify any chance at a momentum rebirth, and didn’t he let the world know about it!
Alex Smith and his rink did a job on Glenelg's leader Zeller, keeping him well and truly out of the game all the way to the end.
How we secured victory
We played a really good “Bowls IQ” game towards the end of the match.
We all knew the numbers of the big board and weren’t concentrating on our own rink score, rather getting the job done on the big board (things like: dropping ones, covering where needed, moving the jack into hard-to-access places).
I can’t say the same for Glenelg…
Our voice was great, supporters were awesome, beers were cold and promotion to Division 2 next year was certainly celebrated!
Can't wait to get stuck in again in a few months time!
Here is Teesa's Take on Rink of the Day: