Poverty Bay-East Coast played North Taranaki on the Saturday for the Challenge Trophy, and won by 49 points to 7.
The Poverty Bay-East Coast Centre has continually financed its young guns and senior players have continually given up their time to bring young players through the ranks.
Selector and juniors coach Malcolm Trowell can be commended for his work with the young guns. He has given time at weekends to see the team triumph over the five years of tournaments, as have David Lynn and Bryan Pulley, who have taken turns managing the teams, contributions for which the youngsters have been thankful.
The winning continued when the Poverty Bay-East Coast team of Arnold Hutchins, Bruce Easton, Nanette Treloar, Coralie Campbell-Whitehead, Andrew Rickard, Doc Tipene, Marise Raklander and Warren Edlin travelled to Opotiki last Sunday and won the Nolan Richardson Trophy for the second time in a row, against Bay of Plenty.
Poverty Bay-East Coast’s traditionally slow start in this event didn’t eventuate this year. The team came out firing and recorded a win and a draw in their fours games to lead straight away, 6-2.
In Round 2 of six, they won two pairs games out of four, then won four and drew one in the singles round to lead 21 points to 15.
Poverty Bay then recorded two wins and a draw in their next pairs round to move into a 28.5-19.5 lead.
In the fifth round, singles, Bay of Plenty won five games out of the eight to close the gap to 34.5 to 29.5.
Poverty Bay knew they only had to win one game of fours to win the event. The last two games of fours could have gone either way, but both games ended up being drawn with points shared. This meant Poverty Bay had won 38.5 to 33.5.
Again, it was a great team effort with all bowlers contributing to the win.