Men’s Centre Singles & Women’s Centre Pairs – 15 & 16 November 2025

The changing face of North Harbour bowls was vividly illustrated at the weekend when two recent arrivals to the centre, Dean McMurchy and Matt Berry, made Sunday’s final of the men’s singles championship at the Takapuna club.  Another distinction to this match-up was that it provided a clash between a recent winner of the national champion of champion singles title in McMurchy with Berry, who last season was a surprise winner of the national singles championship at Browns Bay.

This was the second big impact McMurchy has made in North Harbour since he joined the Beach Haven club, along with a couple of fellow Northlanders, notably Chris Gore who has taken up a teaching post in the Beach Haven area. Two weeks ago McMurchy, Gore and their lead George Lyddiard were runners-up in the Dick Bree triples, a performance which should not have been a surprise, as all have had outstanding records in the Northland centre, with McMurchy a mainstay of its representative side with 17 centre titles to his name.  His class was evident in the play-offs as he comfortably made is way to the final, with his biggest test coming in the semi-final when he beat Takapuna’s Simon Poppleton 21-14.  He probably had his most testing day in Saturday’s qualifying rounds when he was in a section which fitted the description of “pool of death,” for it contained not only him, but Harbour’s most decorated bowler Colin Rogan (Browns Bay), a centre gold star Brian Wilson (Birkenhead) and a twice winner of this event, David Payne (Mairangi Bay).

As expected, the competition was cut-throat and McMurchy only qualified ahead of Rogan by a four-shot superior differential, with Rogan actually winning their game 21-18. Having survived that, McMurchy had a play-off to make the round of 16 with another section winner, the accomplished Steve Cox, a gold star holder in both Auckland and Harbour, a match McMurchy won by just 21-20.

Berry, who has committed to the Harbour centre this season and has already played at representative level, had a much more comfortable path to the play-offs, but in those faced several challenges.  While he won with reasonable comfort in his semi-final against David Den Hertog (Hobsonville) he was fully extended in his round of 16 match against Duncan Whittaker (Riverhead) and Matt Higginson (Manly), winning both by just 21-18.

Besides Rogan, Cox, Wilson and Payne there were several luminaries who didn’t make the round of 16. Browns Bay’s Neil Fisher missed out in his section, as did another Harbour gold star holder, Birkenhead’s Daymon Pierson, who lost a crucial section match 21-20 to Browns Bay’s Simon Battersby, who has only just entered his third season as a bowler. Battersby did well to make the quarter-final adding to an already impressive record, which has included eliminating Brian Wilson, the defending title-holder, from this year’s Ivan Kostanich singles.

There were several contributions to the many surprise results. A large entry meant 22 sections, thus requiring extremely long days, a blind draw which produced the sort of section which contained the likes of McMurchy, Rogan, Payne and Wilson, and the disruption Saturday morning’s shower caused at many venues.

A little more predictable was the women’s pairs championship, which was won in a thrilling Sunday final by Takapuna’s Lisa Dickson and another newcomer to the centre, Sarah Childs, over Manly’s Maureen Howden and Jan Harrison. While notable non-qualifiers included Millie Nathan, Connie Mathieson, Wendy Jensen and Jeni Hart, all from Birkenhead, the main qualifying drama came from another pair from that club, Jacqui Belcher and Loz Croot, who pipped the well-performed Mairangi Bay pair, Sheryl Wellington and Theresa Rogers, 14-13.

In the quarter-finals Dickson and Child beat Takapuna’s club-mates, Leeane Poulson and Robyne Walker, who had been in the winning triples team a fortnight earlier, Mairangi Bay’s Rosemary Nicol and Jodie Cottier beat Birkenhead’s Jamie Chen and Judy Smith, Belcher and Croot beat Manly’s Kathy Stevens and Helen Briant and Howden and Harrison beat Mairangi Bay’s Jan Gledhill and Colleen Rice.

Howden and Harrison were in commanding form again in the semi-finals to beat Belcher and Croot and Dickson and Childs always had the upper-hand over Nicol and Cottier. It was, however, a notable effort by the latter pair to go so far in the event. Rosemary has only just emerged from junior ranks and Jodie, who played some excellent lead bowls, is just a second year bowler.

The final provided plenty of tension and drama with fortunes fluctuating through-out. Dickson and Child looked to be heading for a comfortable win early but Howden and Harrison staged a splendid comeback and with a four on the 13th end actually took the lead 15-11 with four ends to play. But the experience and composure, which always have been a feature of Lisa’s play, plus Sarah’s calmness, prevailed over the last four ends and with a three on the last end they secured an 18-15 win.

It was Lisa’s 24th Harbour title putting her within one of another bar to her gold star and, for Sarah, whose previous bowls has been in the Northland and Auckland centres, obviously her first in the Harbour centre.