Bowls3Five Report – Contributed Article

Birkenhead’s David Eades, Wendy Jensen and Jeni Hart won Bowls North Harbour’s Bowls3Five competition held in beautiful weather at Browns Bay at the weekend.

In a format where luck plays an even greater role than is normal in bowls, and it is difficult for any team to avoid defeat, the trio did lose two of their five matches in Saturday’s section rounds and so could be deemed fortunate to have made Sunday’s Group A post-section play.  But on the final day, all three showed the class, which has made David a multiple centre champion, Wendy a Black Jack international and Jeni one of Harbour’s most promising bowlers, winning all their matches.

Two teams in Group A had four wins: Milford’s father-daughter duo, Charlie and Stacey McDonald and Greg Hurn, and Takapuna’s Chris Taylor, John Whiteford and Jan Calcott. 

On the countback, Milford took second, and Takapuna third, the latter having four of its matches decided by tie-breakers, one of which was crucial as it was against Brown Bay’s Julie Marshall, Mark Brown, and Simon Battersby, three juniors with immense potential who missed out on a top-three place because of two narrow defeats.

Leading umpire Margaret Eames and her Manly team won Group B from Mairangi Bay
Sharks and Helensville Awa won Group C from Mairangi Bay Stingrays

Though no longer leading onto a national play-off, the quickfire format again proved
popular with 42 entries in seven sections from a wide spread of clubs.