Historic event for the club: two of Sturt's elite bowlers, Izzy Trenorden and Alex Smith, played in the grand final of the State Pairs at Holdfast Bay, Thursday night, 16 April 2026.
With a strong contingent of Sturt members in the gallery and more watching online, Izzy and Alex - whose bowling skills are matched by their graciousness - covered themselves and the club in glory.
We obtained outstanding reports on their experiences from the two players.
Izzy's Report
We were quite literally walking on water throughout the day. We could not put a finger wrong.
Until the final.
We’ve played more than enough night games, but this one was different. The greens got a roll pre final, and as we got further past 7pm it got slower and then significantly wider and wetter with a heavy dew.
It was the wider part that we just simply couldn’t figure out.
The first few ends of the final we were a little scratchy on our weight and line but in the game.
However, every end as we started to build something the opposition nullified any and every opportunity to make a number, trail a jack or widen a target.
They owned the “beyond” part of "on or beyond" with significantly more bowls 2-3 feet past the jack.
This gave them more opportunities and added to the inability for us to play anything. Credit to them.
This also led to us playing some non-textbook shots trying to create opportunities and create ways to win.
Throughout the day, Smithy's first bowl pressure was enormous. He set us up every end of every game with a good start.
Whilst disappointed to save our worst game for the last it was a good experience and felt good to paste a couple of teams along the way.
I personally felt so much prouder than ever playing for Sturt (I’m sure Smithy was the same).
The support we had in game 1 and game 4 was easily the biggest and best of the WEEK!!!
It honestly felt like a pennant game for us out there and this support added in with the messages we received was phenomenal and motivating.
It was a pleasure and an honour to wear the Sturt shirt on Thursday!
Alex's Report
Still pretty gutted, but what an experience.
After our first win, it was the deepest I had ever gone in a State tournament, and my initial approach to handling the added pressure of the final 16 was, ‘just keep winning and it’s another game of bowls with my best mate’ so fortunately that mindset paid off until the final game!
Full credit to the McLaren Vale boys, Ben & Leigh, they’ve won it before, so playing below our best and honestly our worst game of the day, meant we were playing really reactively throughout the final.
They changed the head more consistently and got the jack on the move more often. Isaac stepped up and played some big bowls to keep us in it but ultimately our execution let us down.
I’ve been fortunate to play a lot of bowls with Isaac in our decade plus as teammates, but our quarter final and semi-final performances will be games I’ll remember forever and be a standard I’ll hold myself to moving forward, as we played some of our best and most consistent bowls.
Against quality opposition the same ‘on and beyond’ ethos Isaac has championed at Sturt this year allowed us to control the head and dictate proceedings as we won both games by double digits, 20-6 & 15-5.
In particular, the big fella really demonstrated why he’s amongst the State’s best players.
As Andrew Smith highlighted on the finals livestream, we had strong Sturt contingent supporting at Holdfast Bay with Rocket, Wyatt, Richo, Clo, Colonel, Riley, Spider, Hilly, Bron, Shane and the (sorry if I missed anyone) many others showing up for the final and throughout the day.
Add in the multitude who said they tuned in to the livestream and wow! What a club.
So grateful for the support and honoured to pull on the Blue shirt on the ‘big stage’.
In Appreciation
Izzy and Alex, the whole club salutes you.