Wednesday, Jan 17 2024 – Grant Hassall
Grant Hassall
While there was uniform delight at the clear skies the appeared so impressively on the second’s play in the 119th Midlands Funds Management Taranaki men’s Open fours yesterday, by early afternoon there were many wishing the overcast conditions from Monday would return.
The heat certainly took its toll and those not keeping up with the liquid intake found concentration much more difficult.
As expected, there was a wide cross section of results, with many guns surging ahead and others faltering.
Overnight the analysis is that of the 166 teams taking part, 29 have won the lot so far, 52 sides sit on two wins and 58 quartets have had just one victory. That means that 27 teams are dreaming about the pairs or next season.
Two of the more prominent skips in the latter category are Peter Dorreen (Far North RSA) and Garry Petersen (Wanganui East). Both are successful gold star recipients in their home centres and have featured in past Opens. But such is the nature of the game and the event.
Among the visitors to enjoy the heat and the well-running Paritutu front green yesterday afternoon was Mt Albert’s Steve Ramsay.
Ramsay’s team, after a win on Monday, was not in the hunt in the morning’s round, being thumped 30-8 by Birkenhead’s Nigel Drew.
The Aucklanders were therefore looking down the barrel in the afternoon with a clash against Stokes Valley’s Caleb Hope. But Ramsay and co righted the ship to score an impressive and important 22-16 victory. Drew, following Monday’s narrower victory over Hawera Park’s Mark Dudley, made it two impressive wins for the day by later beating two-winner Robin Pierce (Katikati) 29-10.
Drew presents a well-balanced side with specialist front men Mark Rumble and Brian Wilson joined by rising prospect Daymon Pierson.
Hope’s side includes Robbie Bird, who in his relatively short time in the game has already tasted success in the 2021 NZ champion-of-champions singles and twice in the NZ intercentre.
They finished the day on two wins.
After a near perfect performance on Monday, win No 2 came 25-22 over Dudley in the morning, after the boys from the capital had led by one shot at the commencement of the 25th end.