2025 Cadness Cup Report
Mairangi Bay enjoyed a double success winning both men’s and women’s championships when the Cadness Cup titles were decided yesterday.
The Mairangi Sharks team of skip David Payne, Kevin Cameron, Gordon Jenkins and Allan Langley, beat the Birkenhead Stingers line-up of John Hindmarch, Mike Turner, Evan Thomas and Mike Haggart, in the final at Milford, 25-14 after 11 of the scheduled 12 ends.
And the Mairangi Bay Pearls team of Sheryl Wellington, Geraldine Wight, Hanaan Shahwan and Lorna Donald won the women’s competition, finishing top ahead of Takapuna in the six-team round-robin. Wellington came in as the second-day skip ahead of the unavailable Kieran Roberts.
For the Mairangi Bay men it was the second consecutive season they have won this competition, with the only change Payne coming for Ian Coombe at skip. Coombe did play again this season but was available for only the first day.
The win was particularly satisfying for club stalwart Cameron after a run of near misses in other centre events this season, making the semi-final of the inter-club sevens and finishing runner-up in the recent three-five competition.
By coincidence, virtually the same Mairangi Bay and Birkenhead combinations met in last season’s final.
However, what loomed as a tense final did not eventuate, with Mairangi Bay bolting away to a 16-1 lead after just six ends. Up front the consistent draw bowls of Langley and Jenkins dominated the all-important bonus points and on the rare occasion they were astray Cameron and Payne were equally as accurate.
After showing good form in the quarter-finals and semi-finals and eliminating Hobsonville and then the second Mairangi team, the Barracudas, Birkenhead in the final paid the price of taking too long to adjust to the pace of the middle rink.
It did recover over the final ends to gain some respectability but it was much too late.
In the quarter-finals the Mairangi Sharks had comfortable wins over Beach Haven and then in the semi-final over the Orewa Blue Caps.
The Mairangi Bay Pearls cliched the women’s title beating Mahurangi East 20-15 in the final round. The Pearls lost their first round match to club-mates, the Mairangi Bays Dolphins but recovered to win all four remaining matches. They were tested in what was effectively the final by Mahurangi East with the scores 15-all, going into the last end. The maximum bonus plus three more shots, however, saw them home.
In a cut-throat competition Takapuna, Mahurangi East and the Dolphins all finished with three wins, but with Takapuna taking the runners-up slot with a differential of plus 22 over third placed Mahurangi East on plus four, just ahead of the Dolphins on minus one.
The Takapuna team was Megan Ratcliffe, Margaret Hooker, Lyn Calver and Jan Calcott and the Mahurangi East team was Karen Vaissiere, Jan Boag, Judy Fisher and Fiona Taylor.
