National Pairs and Singles – it’s a wrap!!

In what generally was a quiet tournament for bowlers from the northern part of the country, Leeane Poulson and Tony Grantham injected some North Harbour interest into the final day of the 2025-26 national singles and championships in Christchurch.

Leeane, who joined the Takapuna club from Counties this season and who won the Bowls North Harbour centre’s triples title a couple of months ago, finished runner-up in a memorable women’s final against one of the best-ever New Zealand women bowlers, Mandy Boyd.  And Tony came close to adding to the incredible record of his legendary partner, Gary Lawson, in the men’s pairs final. Tony, of course, has played most of his competitive bowls in recent seasons for Auckland’s Mount Albert club.
But he made the Black Jacks from North Harbour, has become one of the centre’s most prolific title-holders and is still a member of Birkenhead.

In making the women’s singles final, while representing Takapuna, Leeane added to the impressive record that club has had in recent years in this event.
Selina Goddard won the title three seasons ago and last season Wendy Jensen was still a Takapuna member when she finished runner-up to Waikato’s Deb White.
Though beaten 21-16 by Boyd, Leeane, who won this title two years ago for her Counties club, could derive considerable satisfaction from her performance.  Not only was she up against a formidable opponent, who earlier in the week had already won the pairs, and who was playing on her home green at the Elmwood Park club, but she had to battle back from what was a big midway deficit.

There was also the strong north-westerly wind and 30-degree heat to contend with. Down 7=15 after 11 ends Leeane, despite playing well, looked to be headed for a heavy defeat, so dominant was Boyd both drawing and driving.  But Leeane showed immense character in rallying to begin dominating the game to such an extent she recovered to actually put herself in almost a winning position.  By the 19th end she had pegged the score back to 16-17 and was holding the shot which would have levelled the score, only for Boyd to drive out her shot bowl and instead take three shots and a 20-16 lead.

This was Boyd’s 10th national title, though her first in singles, and her double success at the one championship enabled her to join a small group who have achieved this distention.

Grantham and Lawson were aiming for their third national pairs title in the past four seasons and what would have been Lawson’s 17th title and Tony’s sixth.
They looked to have done it with the scores tied at 14-all coming to the 18th and last end, and particularly when Grantham drew his opening bowl right on the jack.  However, his opponent Ethan Kelleher drove the jack and his bowl with it into the ditch for what was a virtually unassailable position.  Thus Kelleher and his brother Hamish, with a 15-14 win, were able to reverse the result of two seasons ago when they were beaten in the final by the same Lawson-Grantham combination.

Originally from the West Coast, the brothers now play with Christchurch’s Halswell club, giving the South Island a clean sweep at these championships.

Still, it is an astonishing record for Lawson, whose swag of titles date back to 1989 and cover all of the decades since and have been won with nine different clubs. But like Boyd, he is now a member of Elmwood Park.

There was at these nationals only a handful of bowlers from Harbour clubs with the travel and accommodation costs always a challenge. But several did make post-section play, which is an achievement in itself. A full list of results is available at the following link. Link to Results

Takapuna’s Graham Skellern made the semi-final in both the disabled singles and pairs, Birkenhead’s Millie Nathan made the quarter-finals of the women’s singles, losing by only 21-18 to Boyd and Birkenhead’s Nick Thompson went deep in both singles and pairs. In so doing he had the distinction of beating former world champion, Shannon McIlroy.  

No doubt, there will be a stronger Harbour present when the national fours and mixed pairs championships are held in the Bay of Plenty on February 19-26.