Bowls: Bay players exceed expectations

Jo Wroe, of Waipukurau, was the Hawke's Bay women's player of the weekend. Photo/Warren Buckland.

Hawke's Bay's respective senior men's and women's bowls selectors face selection dilemmas of the healthy kind and they wouldn't want it any other way.

"It's going to be tough to decide upon who to leave out ... fortunately I don't have to cut the squad from 16 to 10 until February. I can watch the blokes in a few championships and tournaments before then," Bay men's selector-coach Graeme Wagg said after his side beat their Gisborne-East Coast counterparts 39-17 at the Port Ahuriri club during the weekend.

"All of my blokes played to the level I expected of them. I was particularly pleased with my two teenagers," Wagg said, referring to Dean Drummond of the Kia Toa club and Bowls Taradale's Richard Hocking.

Drummond led for Mark Stevenson and they won all four of their pairs matches. Hocking, the Bowls Napier pair of Dave Stevenson (Mark's brother) and Paul Sorenson and the Bowls Taradale pair of Jack Philip and John McLaughlin were others to be singled out by Wagg for significant contributions.

Skip Philip, the centre chairman, and lead McLaughlin were unbeaten in all four of their matches. Sorenson skipped a fours combination well.

Wagg said Bowls Heretaunga's Tony Terry performed well, as a replacement for clubmate and singles player Paul Harrison, who ruptured an achilles on Saturday. "I'm in a similar situation to Graeme. Although we lost, our women, including six juniors new to this level, played well," Bay women's selector-coach Jim Bentley said after his team's 30-26 loss.

One of the juniors, Waipukurau's Jo Wroe, was Bentley's player-of-the-weekend. Wroe recorded a win and a draw in singles matches against Gisborne East Coast's top two women.

Playing with Kia Toa's Joy Iti in a pair, Wroe recorded a narrow loss.

As expected, Bowls Taradale's New Zealand representative Angela Boyd oozed class throughout the weekend.

Bentley is in his second season at the helm and said his main goal is to improve on last summer's third placing at the national inter-centre finals in March. With the men's and women's scores combined for the overall result, Hawke's Bay retained the Challenge Cup for the seventh consecutive year. Gisborne East Coast haven't won the cup since it was introduced in 2007.