Bowls North Harbour Pennants Finals Day – by Lindsay Knight
Orewa’s immense depth in North Harbour bowls was illustrated with a commanding performance at the centre’s pennants finals held at Browns Bay early last month. Orewa won three of the titles, the women’s premier grade, men’s division two and the mixed division two. The club would have had a 100% record for the day but for the fact its premier men’s team was downed by a strong Browns Bay side which capitalised on home green advantage with a 12-3 win.
Orewa’s only success in the men’s final was by one point only when Errol Koroi, Murray Vallance and Walter Howden won their match. But that was not enough to offset Browns Bay’s star-studded line-up headed by international bowler Tony Grantham and one of the centre’s most decorated bowlers, Brent Turner.
One of the innovations for this season’s pennants was to award winning players who had appeared regularly in the competition a centre title for winning the final. So for another of the Browns Bay side Scott Evans sharing in the win gave him a gold star for five centre titles. Orewa’s David Eades was full of praise for the Browns Bay side, describing its play as “awesome.” “The way they played I think they would have beaten anyone,” he said.
For one of the Orewa premiership winning women’s side, Christeen Dalzell, it also meant a gold star badge, a notable feat for someone who has recently bounced back from a health reversal and for Lisa Parlane it was another bar to her gold star, giving her 15 in all.
The Orewa women’s premier team beat a gallant Takapuna side 12-3. However. Trish Croot, Anne Dorreen and Robyne Walker provided some reward for the runners-up with a hard-fought win over the redoubtable combination of Parlane, Elaine McClintock and Jan Harrison.
The small Riverhead club, boosted by such renowned bowlers as Steve Cox, Duane McDonald and Grant Goodwin, won men’s division one with a comfortable win over Manly.
And Orewa’s second men’s team was almost as dominant over Takapuna in the men’s division two final. A feature of this section was that two of the winning skips were father and son, Ross Higginson and Matthew, with the latter only in his second year as a bowler. Takapuna had dominated the double qualifying round-robin, but apart from the Bob Telfer-skipped triple failed in the final to adapt to the keen wind and fast green.
Glenfield, headed by top bowlers Denise Samuel and Lisa Helmling, won the mixed division one title from Sunnybrae and Orewa beat Mairangi Bay 15-0 in the mixed division two final.
Written by Lindsay Knight