Bowls star Jamie Walker insists nothing will change ahead of gold medal clash

Jamie Walker insists nothing will change ahead of Tuesday’s lawn bowls men’s pairs gold medal match after overcoming Scottish duo Alex Marshall and Paul Foster in the semi-finals alongside Sam Tolchard.

The pair have found a winning formula so far at this summer’s Commonwealth Games, winning all but one of their group games before beating the legendary Scottish duo.

This summer, Team England, supported by funding raised by National Lottery players, comprises of over 400 athletes, all vying for medal success.

And Northampton’s Walker is determined to stick to what has worked so far ahead of the match against Wales’ Daniel Salmon and Jarrad Breen.

“Just keep doing what we normally do,” said Walker. “Go back, chill out, play some cards. Maybe a non-alcoholic lager. That’ll be it.”

The English pair were playing some of their best stuff on C Green, despite most eyes being on the men’s triple final a few hundred yards away.

And Walker admitted he was overjoyed with the result, that sees him guaranteed his first Commonwealth medal.

“I’m over the moon,” said Walker.

“We knew it was going to be a tough game against those guys [Alex Marshall and Paul Foster] but we backed ourselves.

“We know if we play well we can get them chasing shots and that’s what we did – and we managed to do that.”

They now face Wales at 8.30am tomorrow morning, who boast 2018 champion Salmon, but Tolchard is not settling for silver.

“There’s no point in going mad because if we don’t win tomorrow, it means nothing,” said Tolchard, who claimed bronze in 2014.

“We need to get our heads down, play like we did today and if we do that we stand a good chance.”

The result was redemption for Tolchard, who lost to the Scottish duo at the same stage eight years ago.

But the Devonian was adamant their opponents was not a factor in their victory.

“It’s a game of bowls at the end of the day, you have to forget your opponent and just play,” added Tolchard.

“If you don’t play well here you’re going to lose. The opponents are irrelevant, we’ve just got to focus on ourselves.”

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