BOWLS - Northland nail victory with last-round blitz

With Garry Houlahan
Pleasing results from the 1-5 Year representative games at Waipu on Sunday. The women won overall with 16 match points, heading Auckland, with 12. Far North and North Harbour had 10 points, but Harbour had the better shots score, to take third. After two of the three rounds, all four centres had eight match points and Auckland had the best shot score, but in the final round, Northland swept all four games to go top.
After two rounds, the men were second behind Harbour, but had a dismal last round, losing all four. They held on to second with 10 points, albeit on shots scored. Auckland also had 10 points but were 13 shots adrift of Northland.
This weekend sees the Centre Triples, men at Onerahi and Kamo and women at Kensington.
Draws: Men at Onerahi - L Lawrence, T Reader, K Sidwell, K Nash, A Van Haaften, A McKinnon, G Rope, K Robinson, J Thorburn, R Sowerby, N Yovich, J Dunn, R Arbon, W McLeish, B Horscroft, T Webb. Men at Kamo - G O'Neill, J Hovell, R Roadley, I McMurchy, S Nelson, C Pierce, N Lett, A Rakich, M Haslam, I Halls, A Stebben, C Gore, S Smith, T Chapman. Women at Kensington - D Stewart, A Muir, E Riceman, M Parker, M Timoti, G Norris-Palmer, S Wightman, A Halls, J McLean, S Stirling, J Cross, P Warth, C Crawford, S Anderson, E Van Haaften, J Carson, J Osborne, J Wilson, T Rakich, V Reed.
Play starts at 9am and those who qualify will need to report to Kamo at the same time on Sunday.
We are not too far away from the men's umpires tournament, which is to be held at Whangarei Bowling Club on Friday, November 7. The umpires do a great job in attending all major tournaments and sorting out those close calls for the players so here is an opportunity to help them out. Entries go to Dave Dalton on 437 7089.
The female umpires also hold a tournament, but this is a little later in the season, on Friday, November 21, at Kensington. Contact for this tournament is Sylvia Batchelor on 437 7681.
For those who do not manage to qualify for post-section play in the triples, the Waipu Bowling Club is taking late entries for their Mixed Triples on Sunday. Ring Lester Earby on 432 1089. Players will already written the whole weekend off in the hope of qualifying in the Centre event so if you miss out there you might as well have a run at Waipu.
Another event looking for entries is the annual Masonic tournament at Kensington on December 3. This may seem a good way off, but I understand that entries may be limited to the first 32 paid up so make sure you get in. This is a very popular tournament and is any combination and limited to 10 points per team. Contact is Harry Gray on 437 7412.
The Maungaturoto Bowling Club do not hold many open tournaments, but those they do are very popular and attract teams from all around Northland and North Harbour.
The spin-off from this is that the local teams do not often figure among the prize-winners, so it was pleasing to see the results of the club's Heatley Memorial tournament recently.
The winners were three Maungaturoto players in Rex Roadley, Terry McMahon and Kevin Flower, plus Richard Yanko from Onerahi, with four wins, 26 ends and 72 shots. Close behind in second place was Bob Hodgson's Waipu team, who also had four wins and 26 ends but only 51 shots. From all accounts an enjoyable day, as you'd expect from the Maungaturoto people.