Indoor Bowls: Plenty of action on Northland circuit

The latest indoor bowling action. Photo / Stuart Munro.

Teams selected from the four districts covered by the Northland Indoor Bowling Centre gathered at the Badminton Centre in Whangarei for their annual one-day event.

Rodney/Northern Wairoa, Bay of Islands, Far North and Whangarei districts each selected teams of 12 players consisting of three singles players, one pairs team, one triples team and one fours team to contest each discipline over seven rounds.

This format always leads to strongly contested matches with the best playing the best.

The singles match-ups saw a series of fiercely fought rounds with Whangarei's Ton Kaanscoring on 10 points while Marcel Ruedi, Lillian Christini (Bay of Islands) and Graeme Collins (Rodney/Northern Wairoa) all finished on eight points.

In the pairs, the Far Northern team of Ivan Buselich and Sarah Travers narrowly edged out the Bay of Islands pair of Doreen Christiansen and Leicester Budd by one end on a countback as both teams finished with four wins.

Judy Bethel, Peter Christiansen and Colleen Harvey of the Bay of Islands team proved too strong in the triples finishing well ahead winning five games and drawing the sixth.

Similarly in the fours division the Whangarei team of Kia Ward, John Colman, Lyn Nisbet and Eleanor Holt led a clean sweep winning all their games.

The winning district overall on 51 points was Whangarei followed by Bay of Islands with 42 points, Far North on 27 points and Rodney/Northern Wairoa with 24 points.

Anzac Day then saw the always popular New World Nine Bowl Triples played at Badminton Hall on Toe Toe Rd, Whangarei.

With a 1pm start and a pot luck dinner at its conclusion, this contest is a keenly awaited fixture in the bowlers' calendar.

Forty-two players in 14 teams played in matches consisting of four rounds of eight ends, each with a time limit of 50 minutes per round making for lively play.

The winning team led by the exemplary playing of skip Don Simpson with Kia Ward as second and John Colman leading had a slim margin on a countback of ends of five of an end.

In second place, proving that age is no deterrent to playing competitive indoor bowls, was the team led by the 88-year-old doyen of Whangarei Indoor Bowls Bill Winyard, with wife Topsy as second and Alamaine Pickery leading.

Bill, with his persistently accurate drawing game, is always difficult to beat and still regularly troubles even the top representative players.

The oldest competitor at the event was long time local identity John Rawson at 92 and still able to regularly trouble his opponents with his experience and guile providing an example for the many younger players. It's truly a game for all ages.

The hotly contested Interclub series started last Friday with 10 teams from eight clubs contesting in two sections of five teams.

Sponsored by Discovery Settlers the first night winners were Kauri 1 in the A section and Ruatangata (with a young first-year player in their team) taking out the B section. There will be a further four nights of play to find an overall winner from each group.