Battle of the Bridge – Sunday 7 December 2025

On a day where overall North Harbour’s representatives were outplayed by their Auckland counterparts, the centre’s men’s open team salvaged some distinction in the annual Battle of the Bridge, held at the Browns Bay club.  Against some stiff Auckland competition, whose number included BlackJack and former North Harbour player Tony Grantham, the open’s men’s team emerged with a seven-all tie in the 14 matches across all three disciplines.

But that level was not maintained by Harbour’s remaining five sides, and the competition overall finished 56-28 in Auckland’s favour.
The women’s open team, though strong on paper, managed just three wins and a draw to finish behind Auckland 11-4, and in the development divisions Auckland prevailed 10-5 in the men’s and 9-5 in the women’s and in the one-to-five-year divisions Auckland won the men’s 11-3 and the women’s 9-5.

So the only real positive was achieved by the open men who made a particularly good start in the opening round singles. Matt Berry, Nick Thompson, Brent Malcolm, Steve Hoeft and Brian Wilson all won their games, and there was an impressive effort especially by Malcolm, who beat Grantham 21-11. David Payne also played well in this discipline, losing by just 21-20.  The singles success was off-set by two losses in the fours played in the day’s intense heat on the Browns Bay carpet. But Harbour recovered to square the pairs, with Neil Fisher, fresh from winning the Auckland fours title the day before with his other club, Howick, and Thompson superb in winning their game comfortably.  Much more challenging was Harbour’s second pairs win, with Daymon Pierson and David Eades surviving the thundering drives of Auckland’s Adam Haywood to win a thriller, 18-17.

Harbour’s women’s open team started slowly in dropping both four games, then picking up only two of the eight singles, those won with relative ease by Lisa Dickson and Lauren Mills.  The pairs marginally improved, but the only win came from Millie Nathan and Robyne Walker, though Lisa and Theresa Rogers did pick up a draw. Harbour, of course, was missing its best player, Selina Goddard, and should she be available for the sevens later in the season will be an obvious asset.

In the development men’s competition Harbour had three singles winners in Matt Higginson, Craig Lane and David den Hertog, but lost both fours and was limited to one win and a draw in the pairs.

The women’s development team, as did their open team-mates, started with two draws in the fours, but picked up three singles wins from Judi Farkash, Jan Calcott and Judy Smith. The pairs brought wins to Judy Smith again, with Michelle Macdonald and for Helen Briant and Jeni Hart.

There were only two singles wins for the men’s one-to-five representatives, from Craig Robertson and Barry Baillie, but in the remaining disciplines there was only one further win, from the four of John Coogan, Simon Battersby, Grant Beach and Daniel Chivers.

The women’s one-to-five team had one win and a loss in the fours, two wins in the singles from Carol Voshaar and Deanne Bronlund, with these two finishing on a bright note in the pairs, with Carol and Jodie Cottier and Deanne and Anne Yearbury having wins.