Poverty Bay-East Coast braced for big effort

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

“SUCK it up and move on” is the attitude of exhausted but upbeat Poverty Bay-East Coast golfers as their Freyberg Masters voyage hit stormy waters yesterday.

PBEC were outclassed 4-1 by third-placed North Harbour and 4½-½ by Bay of Plenty on the Motueka course.

The results dropped them from 11th on the 15-province board to 14th and in danger of retaining the wooden spoon.

“It was a tough day, a long day,” said PBEC captain Anaru Reedy, who only 24 hours before had been celebrating a momentous team victory over Northland.

Harbour and BoP were simply too good for PBEC, who — after a quick wound-licking — turned their full attention to their final clash of the week-long matchplay tournament.

PBEC had the bye this morning and finish with an all-important match-up against Taranaki in the afternoon.

The 'Naki, who also had a bye this morning, were sitting 13th on the table on the same team points as PBEC — 1½ — but with 13½ individual wins, 1½ more than PBEC.

Southland are bottom on 1 team point and 6½ individual wins — 3½ of those coming in their victory over PBEC in Round 1.

Dwayne Russell and David Solomann yesterday provided the positive moments for PBEC from a day on which most them struggled with the flagstick.

Solomann, at No.4 in the team, defeated Harbour's Stephen O'Reilly 1-up.

No.1 Reedy lost 4 and 3 to Ben Westgate; No.2 Russell lost 5 and 4 to Scott Robertson; No.3 Tony Akroyd's three-match winning streak was ended 3 and 2 by Cam Emett; and No.5 Jace Brown was beaten 3 and 2 by Dell Bain.

PBEC avoided a donut against BoP thanks to an 18th-hole birdie from Russell that got him up to share the honours with Simon Wright.

“If it (his ball) hadn't hit the hole, it would have been 10 feet past,” Reedy said of Russell's aggressive effort.

Reedy lost 2 and 1 to Blair Dibley; Akroyd lost 3 and 2 to Craig van der Nagel (who played in the Poverty Bay Open last month); Pete Bremner — back in the starting line-up after two days off sick — lost 3 and 2 to Mark Smith; and Solomann lost 5 and 3 to Mark Hughes.

Reedy said they were all feeling the effects of a demanding week physically and mentally, but would be up for it this afternoon.

“We'll give it our all.”