July Hoepo (left) with the Martin Cup presented to him as winner of the Bowls Gisborne-East Coast centre men's open singles on Sunday. With him is runner-up and fellow Kahutia Bowling Club member Leighton Shanks.
July Hoepo (left) with the Martin Cup presented to him as winner of the Bowls Gisborne-East Coast centre men's open singles on Sunday. With him is runner-up and fellow Kahutia Bowling Club member Leighton Shanks.
Kahutia club bowler July Hoepo won the Martin Cup for Gisborne-East Coast centre men’s open singles at the weekend.
It was his fourth centre title this season and his 14th in total.
Meanwhile, sisters Anita Vaotuua and Jessie Davis-Law each had their third centre success of the season,combining with Poverty Bay clubmate Cheryl Jenkins to win the Judy Blair Cup for centre women’s open triples.
The win secures a gold star for Vaotuua, signifying five centre titles.
It was Davis-Law’s 20th centre title. She started playing in 1988, much earlier than her sister, but had a significant break from the game.
Hoepo beat Kahutia clubmate Leighton Shanks 21-11 in the men’s singles final.
The pair were teammates when they won the Weatherley Brothers Memorial centre men’s open pairs and J.J. Martin Memorial men’s open fours (with twins Kyle and Liam Pinn), in October.
On Sunday, Shanks got off to a good start and was 6-3 up after seven ends. Then Hoepo put on the afterburner.
The other centre title for Hoepo this season was the Terry Gardiner Memorial men’s open triples, with his nephew Kelly Te Miha and Gerry Kora, two weeks earlier.
Te Miha is having a standout season as a first-year bowler. He also won the Bellerby Cup Open Fours with Geoff, Liam and Kyle Pinn, and the Yelverton Junior Interclub Tournament with the Pinn family.
At the weekend, Te Miha was the only player to beat his uncle July Hoepo – 19-18 in qualifying play.
A field of 26 contested the singles, an entry big enough to persuade organisers to shift the women’s triples tournament – originally set for the Gisborne greens alongside the men’s event – to the Poverty Bay club greens.
Eight bowlers qualified for the knockout rounds on the second day. Five of them were from Kahutia (Hoepo, Shanks, Te Miha, Geoff Pinn and son Kyle) and three were from Tolaga Bay (Don Williams, Vern Alder and Ricky Miller). Geoff and Kyle Pinn and Te Miha are juniors.
Shanks and Williams were top qualifiers, followed by Alder, Kyle Pinn, Miller, Hoepo, Te Miha and Geoff Pinn.
Te Miha met another uncle – Tolaga Bay’s Williams – in the quarter-finals. This time, experience prevailed, 21-10, and Williams went on to face his brother Hoepo in the semi-finals. Hoepo won 17-11.
In the other quarter-finals, Shanks beat Geoff Pinn 21-19, Miller beat Kyle Pinn 21-11 and Hoepo beat Alder 21-5.
Shanks beat Miller 21-17 to reach the final.
Poverty Bay Bowling Club's Cheryl Jenkins (left), Anita Vaotuua (skip) and Jessie Davis-Law won the Judy Blair Cup for the Bowls Gisborne-East Coast centre women's open triples.
Seven teams contested the centre women’s open triples in a round-robin format.
The Poverty Bay team of Vaotuua (skip), Davis-Law and Jenkins won their first five games for 10 match points and a differential of +45. They did not need to play their final game, against the Tolaga Bay team of Queenie Takurua, as they had done enough to take the title.
That left the Kahutia team of Glenys Whiteman (s), Sharon Hohipa (substituting for Dayvinia Mills, who was ill on Saturday) and Karen Pinn with the prospect of second if they could beat another Poverty Bay team – Kathryn Flaugere (s), Anna Colvin and Jenny Amor.
Whiteman’s team held off a late surge to win 12-10 to finish with nine match points and a +26 differential.
Third were Gisborne’s Dianne Phillips (s), Ginny Sherriff and Joy Davis, with six points and a +7 differential.
Davis-Law opened her 2025/26 centre title account with the Champion of Champions senior mixed pairs, alongside Poverty Bay clubmate Marc Alexander, on October 4.
Vaotuua, Davis-Law and Jenkins were joined by Deborah Hancock for the Rahiwi Cup centre women’s open fours title win on October 12.
In November, Vaotuua added the Brown Whānau Trophy for centre women’s open singles to her season haul.
Sunday’s women’s open triples made it three centre titles this season for sisters Vaotuua and Davis-Law.
In addition, Vaotuua, Davis-Law, Jenkins and Hancock were in the Poverty Bay team who won the Peck Shield women’s senior interclub competition early last month, and Davis-Law and Hancock were in the Gisborne-East Coast women’s representative team who ran Hawke’s Bay women close in the Challenge Cup games in Napier two weeks later.
Vaotuua, 57, and Davis-Law, 56, are daughters of the late Patrick and Babe Law – keen bowlers and members of the Poverty Bay club.
Elder brothers Ian (Helensvale, near Gold Coast), Ron (Waimate, south of Timaru) and Graham (north of Auckland) played to varying degrees, but it was the youngest sibling who first picked up their parents’ sport.
Davis-Law took up the game in the 1988-89 season. Brothers Ian, Ron and Graham followed. Then, 12 years ago, friends Vaotuua and Jenkins started playing about the same time after years of watching husbands George Vaotuua and Steve Jenkins enjoying their time on the greens.
Davis-Law lived outside the Gisborne district for 16 years until 2022, and for the first 14 of those she didn’t play bowls. Since 2020, she has embraced the sport again and keeps everyone up to speed with her posts on the Bowls Gisborne-East Coast Facebook page.
