Welcome to a new season of bowls in the glorious Bay and already there's been plenty of action at the centre level.
The Bay of Plenty women's open fours has been completed with the talented Matua team of Sue Taylor (skip), Jean Morris, and juniors Carol Rough and Dianne Ratcliffe taking away the spoils, with a strong finish over Mt Maunganui's Marie Brown, Merle Tasker, Pat Davis and Robyn Davis in the final.
The men's open fours final will be contested on November 20 at the Tauranga South club between defending champions, Steve Beel (skip), Lance Tasker, Dean Worrall and Paul Anderson, and another Matua side of Bill Brown (skip), Harry Burggraaf, Ron Cameron and Mike Boyce.
They both came through tense semifinals on Labour Day.
Tauranga South's Peter Clark, Robbie Frelan, Malcolm Kidd and David Janes came within one shot over the closing ends, but Beel, after killing the penultimate 15th end four times, pulled away to win 15-11.
Brown was one behind on the last end against Graham Skellern and Howard Fahy, playing with two promising youngsters James Williams and Matt Mortensen.
Burggraaf drew one shot and after the jack was flicked back to another of Matua's bowls, Brown drew the winning second shot with his last bowl to move into the final 17-16.
Last weekend the Baywide women's inter-club was completed, with Rotorua in Division One and Matua in Division Two marching on to the regional play-offs against the champion sides from Counties-Manukau, Thames Valley and Waikato.
It was another strong performance from the Matua ladies who included Morris playing the singles, Rough and Ratcliffe in the fours along with Noelene Schmidt and Noelene Williams.
Frances Ardern and Marje Flowerday played the pairs, and the team had nine wins and a draw over 15 matches in five rounds. ]
They finished on 19 points, ahead of Arawa 17, Mt Maunganui 16, Omanu 15, Tauranga South 12 and Kawerau 11.
The Matua side has given themselves the chance of winning the national Division Two title for the second time in four years, but they have to get through the regional qualifying first.
The Baywide men's contest will come down to some final crucial matches at the Tauranga South club on November 19.
The host club is in the box seat in Division One being three games and 73 differential points clear of last season's champions, Mt Maunganui and they meet in the only match that needs to be played in the final seventh round.
Tauranga South put in a powerful performance on the second day at Ngongotaha, winning all nine games and skipping ahead with 15 wins out of 18 matches for 30 points, ahead of Mount with 24, Gate Pa 20, Te Puke 15, Ngongotaha 12, Rotorua 11, Kawerau and Matua both 10.
Both Robbie Frelan (Tauranga South) and Lance Tasker (Mount) had six straight wins in the singles and their clash in the final round will be keenly watched. Frelan gave his team a big break when he powered back from 0-14 to beat Gate Pa's experienced Robbie Aitken 25-17 in the sixth round.
Tauranga South's pair of Skellern and John Simons got going after dropping two games on the first day by winning 20-12, 27-9 and 21-9 at Ngongotaha.
The four of Phil Harris, Tony Parkinson, Jim Martin and Graeme Heward finished up with five wins from six matches they also had an important 16-14 victory over the Steve Hughes-skipped Gate Pa combination.
The Tauranga South Division Two team, who have won the national inter-club title twice, were the leading qualifiers in their section, winning 11 out of 15 games.
They will be contesting a four-team round robin play-off on November 19 against the other qualifiers Gate Pa, Omanu and Rotorua.
Both the men's Division One and Two winners go forward to the regional qualifying to make the six-strong national field.
In between all this, the experimental 16-strong Bay men's and women's teams sneaked through in the annual Thelma Kidd Trophy contest against Waikato at Te Awamutu.
The games were shared 12-all after two rounds but the Bay won on total combined points, 382 to 371.
The Mina Paul-skipped four made the difference in the morning by winning 35-6.