Croquet: Northland spots up for grabs

Rilla Jeffs, Neville King and George Smith will compete for two places to represent Northland in the Upper North Island Teams Event (UNITE) at Pukekohe next month.

The top guns in Northland Golf Croquet - Rilla Jeffs (3), Neville King (2), and George Smith (2) - met recently at the Whangarei Croquet Club to compete for two places to represent Northland in the Upper North Island Teams Event (UNITE) at Pukekohe over next month's Auckland Anniversary weekend.

Also at Whangarei were the intermediate players - Jean Kent (5), Sue McLeod (5) and Flo Osborne (7) - to play off for two positions in their division of UNITE.

Playing in perfect conditions the scene was set for some tough battles. In both sections there were some brilliant clearing shots, jump shots and long successful shots at hoops. All players had to play two rounds with some very close results.

In the senior section Neville King (Whangarei) won three of his four games to secure a place. George Smith (Doubtless Bay) had some tough competition with Rilla Jeffs (Kerikeri) but managed to gain the upper hand and secure the second spot.

In the intermediate section, Jean Kent (Waipu) reigned supreme winning all four of her games, while reducing her handicap to four. That left Sue Mcleod (Kerikeri) and Flo Osborne (Kensington) to battle it out for the second spot, which saw Osborne beat Mcleod by a convincing 7-2 win in a third game playoff to gain her opportunity to represent Northland.

No playoffs were needed for the junior section.

In Association Croquet no playoffs were needed.

The Annual UNITE event covers both codes at different venues.

-Representing Northland in January 2016 are:

Association Croquet at Morrinsville: A Grade - Tseng te Chung (Whangarei); Intermediate - yet to be filled; B Grade - Mike Midgley (Maungakaramea); C Grade - Maitland Cole (Whangarei).

Golf Croquet at Pukekohe: Seniors - Neville King and George Smith; intermediate - Jean Kent and Flo Osborne; juniors Jan King (Whangarei) and Jean Tafa (Waipu).

-In other Northland Croquet news:

Doubtless Bay announces that pupils from Taipa Area School are enjoying croquet at their club as a weekly sports exercise, with some potential players showing skills.

All clubs have now had their Christmas break-up day, although some will continue playing through the break.

Kerikeri held their final tournament for 2015 last week and attracted so many entries that numbers had to be restricted to 40 players - such is the growing interest in croquet.

In early January, the Whangarei Croquet Club will be holding its annual five-day tournament with both codes, the Gold and Silver Stars in Golf Croquet playoffs begin, the Northland Croquet GC Doubles at Kensington take place and the Doubtless Bay weekend tournament gets under way.

All Northland clubs have a very busy season ahead.