The Bombers went down by two shots — snaring four points in the process — against Shepparton Park in new coach Dane Gade's weekend pennant debut for the club.
Gade had a chance to level the overall board with his final bowl, but missed.
“Three of the four rinks were going good. My rink was on the back foot early, dropped a few smaller numbers in a row and ended up about 10-0 down,” Gade said.
“I thought I had it, just at the last second it deviated and missed by a whisker.
“Our selectors are not going to be changing anything, we've got a lot of new players and new combinations, so we have to let that settle. There's no point chopping and changing after a tight loss away from home to a side which probably won't lose many games at home for the season.”
This weekend Kyabram hosts Stanhope — which defeated East Shepparton by 12 shots in round one — and Gade is looking forward to another tight contest.
“Being new to the region I don't know much about many people, so I have to take it off their round one effort, and from that they look like they're going to be a good side this year, so it will be a good challenge on Saturday,” he said.
“(In saying that though) I wouldn't look too much into too many round one results, clubs have had all different levels of pre-season, so I think by about round six it'll even out and we'll get a really good idea of what the top four might look like.”
Stanhope is also unchanged, with Shane Walsh, Tim Hancock, Brad Robinson and Rob Armstrong skipping once more.
The quartet will match up against one of Gade, Glenn Fields, Greg Shilling or Rob George at Kyabram on Saturday — with the green set to be in great condition.
“Our green has been pretty slow throughout the pre-season,” Gade said.
“But from all reports it jumped up a couple of seconds for round one, so should be running very nicely.”
The Parkers travel to take on Tallygaroopna in round two.
The Redlegs went down across all rinks to Tatura-Hill Top in round one and will be keen to bounce back.
Lee Farrell's Bulldogs head to Euroa and will look to keep the Magpies winless to start the season, while East Shepparton hosts Shepparton Golf.
Farrell is the special guest on this week's episode of After The Jack.
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