How do you ease the tension of playing in an Australian Bowls Championships final?
A few cold ones don’t hurt, according to Brent Reiner.
Reiner, alongside Kyabram teammates Josh and David Cartwright, picked up silver in Perth on Tuesday night in the men’s triples event, representing Victoria on the grand stage.
The Bombers trio came agonisingly close to gold at Joondalup Bowling Club, falling to Team Queensland 14-13 in a drama-soaked decider.
Reiner admitted a dose of amber tonic was just the trick to help take the edge off after an electric day of bowls.
“It was an experience and a half, it’s the best I’ve ever done in anything like that,” he said.
“To be honest I was probably more nervous in my first game against the NSW guys than the final.
“The final, we’d had a few beers to take the edge off a little bit.”
Team Victoria was on the back foot in the final after taking out the opening two ends, losing its grip to fall to an 11-4 deficit after eight.
Reiner and the Cartwrights then closed the gap to two with four ends to play.
After Queensland rolled a pair of singles to set the margin at four with two exchanges left, Kyabram’s finest came up one shot short to close out a storied final.
Reiner said it was a game of “what ifs”, but was far from disappointed at reaching the final and almost perching atop the podium.
“Reflecting on the game ... we dropped a four on the 10th end,” Reiner said.
“It got a rub and sat our bowls, if we had’ve dropped a two it would’ve dealt with that ― but not dropping a four.
“At the end of the day it was a close game and could’ve went either way.
“We had the shot when he got the four, (if we) take a five-shot turnaround we win the game by four ourselves.
“It’s swings and roundabouts and I thought we actually played pretty well. Someone has got to win and someone has got to lose, unfortunately.”
Earlier in the day Reiner and Co had a rough start in round one of the sectional phase.
Victoria was stunned 15-12 by NSW, with Reiner admitting he struggled with his depth perception and distance as he adapted to Joondalup’s long greens.
They needed a response and that’s exactly what they got.
The Kyabram products rolled Tasmania by eight shots in game two and South Australia by an identical margin in the last round, booking a date with Queensland thanks to a pair of emphatic performances.
“In the second game we went into it with that mentality of ‘let’s just win, let’s try and win by as much as we can and see what happens’,” Reiner siad.
“They (NSW) got knocked off and then it was just a matter of keeping the gap.
“We got off to a good start, we were consistently about seven in front, we held it and we couldn’t believe it to be honest that we were actually in the final. It was pretty cool.”
Once the stage was set, Reiner cooled the nerves with a few hard-earned beers following a gruelling day on the greens.
The helping of liquid courage was almost enough to have Victoria crowned king of the triples, but there was no shame in taking the moniker of second best in the country.
“It would’ve been fantastic to win it, but I’ve had a lot of messages and phone calls from back home saying you did really well and congratulating us which has been great,” Reiner said.
“I had a lot of support from the Cartwright family with Olivia and Jakey behind here and other Victorians.
“It was awesome, it was a really good experience and I’m pretty happy to at least make the gold medal match and come home with a little bit of silverware.”