Milford 5000 – Sat 24 & Sun 25 January 2026

Manly’s Shaun Goldsbury, Skye Renes and Andy Dorrance were a decisive winning team at the weekend of another highly successful and competitive Harcourts Cooper Milford 5000.  The Goldsbury-skipped trio was the only combination which finished Sunday’s 16-team championship with four wins to finish as an outright winner.

Manly finished the final round with a 12-6 win but probably clinched the title and the $1500 first prize a round earlier when they came perilously close to losing to Howick’s Stephen Campbell, Matt Wesche and Dana Taylor  Up 11-8 with just two ends to play, Manly dropped a three on the second to last end and were well down on the head on the 13th and final end.  But with his last bowl Goldsbury unleashed a superb drive to kill the end. With the placing of the jack on the two-metres one of Manly’s front bowl was declared the winner, but only after a narrow measure by umpire, Lorna Donald.

There were many fine teams among the 32 competing before they were split for the final day into the championship and plate competition, but overall the Manly triple was probably the most experienced and accomplished.  Goldsbury and Dorrance have been among the most prominent Harbour juniors in recent seasons, while Skye is only one title away from a centre gold star and among her successes was winning while still a one-to-five player the North Harbour women’s championship singles. She and Goldsbury also made in that 2022-23 season the national mixed pairs semi-finals.

Teams from North Harbour and Auckland centres contested the event, which is now in its 17th season, having been started in 2009 and which has become one of the best and most lucrative tournaments of its type in New Zealand. Originally just for one-to-five-year bowlers it now extends to one-to-eight-year bowlers but with the condition at least one player must be in the one-to-five-year ranks.

Howick’s David Weir, Bruce Fenton and Greg Dowdell took second place from club-mates, Campnell, Wesche and Taylor, who could be regarded as the unlucky team of the event as but for Goldsbury’s match-saving drive they would have been the champions.  Hobsonville’s David den Hertog, Stephen Thom and Grant Beach also entered the final round with a chance of winning, but dropped their last game to finish fourth.  Teams from Cornwall Park and Bridge Park finished fifth and sixth.
Another Howick team, Liam Cleal, Graham Lewis and Wade Brearley won the $360 prize for winning the plate, in which the best performed North Harbour team was Manly’s Paul Daniels, Kathy Stephens and Doug Hiku.

Considering the brutal conditions, some heavy squally showers plus a vicious wind, the standard of play was high and all bowlers deserved praise for efforts. Plaudits, too, must go to the Milford club headed by president Charlie McDonald and his tournament directors Jan Hutton and Bik Cheung for their efficient organisation in ensuring the tournament finished on schedule. The club’s greens took a pounding from the weather but remained in excellent order.