Gisborne to host cream of the women’s bowls crop in Octagonal

The Bowls Gisborne-East Coast women's squad for the Octagonal being played in Gisborne this weekend. Back row (from left): Diane Tamanui-Murray, Bobbie Beattie (selector/coach), Joanne Wroe, Jackie Horsfall, Jessie Davis-Law and Lesley Seymour. Front: Kathryn Flaugere (manager), Marise Raklander, Anna Colvin, Erica Tamanui-Thompson, Dayvinia Mills and Debs Hancock. Absent: Glenda Kapene. Injuries have caused the withdrawal of Hancock and a move to reserve for Seymour. Hiria Nepe will come in and make her senior representative debut as lead in the fours. Photo / John Gillies

Gisborne welcomes the cream of lower North Island women’s lawn bowls this weekend as the Octagonal tournament comes to town.

Ten-member teams from Wellington, Kāpiti, Wairarapa, Manawatū, Taranaki, Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne-East Coast will play each other in singles, pairs, triples and fours.

Whanganui were unable to send a team.

Normally, men’s and women’s divisions are played in the same centre, but the holiday demand at this time of year meant accommodation could not be guaranteed for a possible 14-team influx.

The Gisborne-East Coast men start their Octagonal in Napier at midday tomorrow.

Both the women’s and men’s teams have had changes to the line-ups originally selected.

In the women’s team, Debs Hancock and Lesley Seymour are out of the line-up because of injury.

That means Hiria Nepe, a junior centre representative, will make her senior rep debut as lead in the fours.

Seymour will move to reserve and will play if necessary.

“I’ve told her she can play left-handed if she has to,” selector/coach Bobbie Beattie said.

Men’s selector Malcolm Trowell had to find replacements for Leighton Shanks and July Hoepo, who were unavailable.

That meant Steve Berezowski moved up from the reserves and Alastair MacPherson was added to the team.

Beattie said it would be an upset if her team won the women’s tournament, but she would not count them out against any of their opponents.

“Taranaki, Wellington and Kāpiti are usually the strongest teams,” she said.

“We have a lot of juniors [players with up to eight years of bowls experience] in our team. They will gain a lot from playing at this level. They’ve been training well but we won’t know how they’ll fare against top players until they’re out there.”

Players would probably be shuffled between disciplines as combinations and form required, Beattie said.

Trowell said Wellington and Taranaki were generally the strongest teams in the men’s competition.

“We always scrap,” he said.

“We get the odd scalp. We’ll play 28 games over the three days. Last year we won eight of those. It would be good to beat that total.”

The Gisborne-East Coast women’s combinations for the first game today are:

Singles: Dayvinia Mills.

Pairs: Diane Tamanui-Murray (skip), Marise Raklander.

Triples: Anna Colvin (s), Joanne Wroe, Jackie Horsfall.

Fours: Glenda Kapene (s), Jessie Davis-Law, Erica Tamanui-Thompson, Hiria Nepe.

The men’s team for the games in Napier: Murray Glassey, Vern Alder, Hiki Kennedy, Vern Withey, Malcolm Trowell, Shaun Goldsbury, Warren Gibb, Andrew Ball, Steve Berezowski and Alastair MacPherson.