Lawn Bowls

Nominations are open for the role of Men’s Selector and Women’s Selector.

Allan Batley has let us know that he won’t be putting his name forward as selector for next season. We would like to thank Allan for his efforts over the last few years as Men’s Selector. This means there is a vacant spot for selector of the Men’s Team. If anyone would like to put their name forward or would like more information, please feel free to contact the Centre Office.

Note Applications close on the 18^th May.

Weather Update at 7.15am

Clear and fine in New Plymouth. Play to start as scheduled.

We are looking to appoint a manager/selector to take a team down to Wellington to represent Bowls Taranaki in a National Under 26 Competition.

If you are interested please contact the Centre. Applications need to be with the Centre Office by Saturday 15^th April.

The successful applicant will have to be able to travel with the team, and select a 5 person team of Under 26 Players. The team can be mixed or optional. The Tournament runs from Friday 14^th July 2023 to Sunday 16^th July 2023 at Naenae Bowling Club, Wellington. If you would like more information please contact the Centre Office.

TCM sponsored Women’s and Men’s Champions of Champion’s Events

We are very much looking forward to a successful conclusion of the Centre’s events for the year. Bowls Taranaki would like to congratulate all the players, as you are already your club winnners, but there can be only one Champion of Champions! This year’s finals weekend will be played at Paritutu Bowling Club. We hope to be able to schedule the Dean File – Colliers Real Estate Hugh Moss Finals, and the finals of the Cross Country Rentals Mixed Pairs during the Champion of Champion events, if possible.

Men’s and Women’s Fours – Stratford-Avon
Junior Men’s and Women’s Singles – Vogeltown
Senior Men’s and Women’s Singles – West End
(Could players bring a marker with them – players will be expected to mark once eliminated.) If anyone would like to mark, please contact the Centre Office. (West End – players note that lunch will not be available to buy).

Men’s and Women’s Triples – West End
Men’s Pairs – Pihama
Women’s Pairs – Okato

Finals Weekend at Paritutu.

These are the entries the Centre Office has received. Entries for the Pairs and Triples close on Sunday 9th April. Please check your entry, if there are any late additions/replacements required, or events to be completed, please contact the Centre Office by email. Understandably some clubs have struggled to finish their Club Champs due to the amount of rain, we’ve had this year, so some clubs are finishing their champs this weekend. Draws will be published early next week.

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Bowls Taranaki working together with our Clubs.

It’s been a very busy period and now there is a chance to reflect. We hope you have all enjoyed the conclusion of a number of tournaments. Congratulations to the winners, but more importantly we hope that everyone has enjoyed their time on the green.

For Midweek and Saturday Interclub players, we have seen the conclusion of the Egmont Shield, won by Fitzroy over Tower. We thank Patty Symes for her efforts and Lepperton Bowling Club for hosting a great final. Avery and Gilmour Competitions have been concluded with Oakura winning both, what a fantastic result for them! In the Southern Division, Tower won the Snowdon Competition, and in the MiLife Men’s Shield we have found our 3 finalists, Tower, Rahotu and Inglewood. Good luck to them, they will play their final at Pihama. Congratulation also goes to Okato for winning the Darth’s Funeral Service Junior Bowls3five and to West End for winning the Darth’s Champ of Champ Bowls3five.

After rain ruined many well made plans before Christmas, we have now finished the Summerset,  Vospers and Dean File Collier’s Real Estate sponsored Interclub competitions. West End won the Men’s and good luck to them in Wellington. While Paritutu won the Men’s Division 2 closely over Manaia and picked up both Women’s Interclub and Junior Interclub. Bowls Taranaki is contributing to help our club teams to travel to Wellington to represent the province. Good luck!

Of course, a lot of time and energy goes into hosting the Taranaki Open Fours every year, and this year was no exception with 182 Men’s Teams and 82 Women’s Teams entering. We had many compliments about our clubs, the catering, the greens and hospitality. It is a lot of hard work hosting 4 or 5 days, and some clubs hosted for 2 weeks, but we expect the tournament will have been of good benefit to the host clubs. We understand prices have increased all around, and have completed a review of the tournament. We are looking into connecting with Venture Taranaki to further enhance our Tournament and continue to look for a major sponsor for this event.

Clubs have now reported their membership for the current year, and it is pleasing to see an increase in members across the board. 12 of our clubs recorded a positive number of members with the top club being Waitara. Membership is challenging in modern times and it is heartening to see some clubs take a creative approach to getting people through the door, spending their money, using the facilities and playing bowls.

Our Umpire’s continue to report good numbers, with a number of new players seeking to become umpires. They are having an introduction evening coming up at Fitzroy Bowling Club. If you are interested in becoming an umpire, get in touch with the Association. While we also assisted with giving new players a better understanding of the rules with a handy rulebook at our First Year Singles tournament.

Existing coaches will have an opportunity to improve their skills at a Bowls New Zealand held workshop coming soon. Pencil in the 22^nd and 23^rd of July at the Paritutu Indoor Stadium. The Coaches Association will have their AGM at Stratford-Avon on the 20^th May at 10am.

We’ve had many compliments about the qualities of greens from visiting players, and when our players travel away from Taranaki and come back, they always comment on how we should be proud of the good number of quality greens we do have. Thanks to all the greenkeepers and volunteers who continue to produce high quality greens. The Greenkeepers Association is working on setting up another field day with the NZ Sports Turf Institute, and we thank Maurice Symes and Fitzroy Bowling club for their efforts to support Bowls New Zealand and Bowls Gisborne – East Coast clubs to re-build after the devastating cyclone.

Bowls Taranaki hosted 3 of the 4 Representative Tournaments this year, the Men’s and Women’s Octagonal and the Junior Men’s Hexagonal and it went off with a bang. A lot of players from around the lower North Island were impressed with the quality of our greens and clubs. We hope to see them return again, either for our Open, your club tournaments or in future Representative fixtures. After Whanganui and Kapiti were unable to host, we put our hand up to help host the Junior Hexagonal. We thank Hawera Park for doing a great job and look forward to hosting Rep fixtures again when it is our turn.

Our representative teams performed well, with only Wellington standing out above the crowd. Our teams comprised of players from the following clubs: Paritutu, West End, Waitara, New Plymouth, Fitzroy, Inglewood, Stratford-Avon, Okato, Rahotu, Opunake, Hawera Park and Manaia. A truly representative selection of players. We would like to thank all of our Managers and Selectors, who have done a great job looking after our teams this season, John Garrud, Graham Rieve, Cindy Nichol, John Sexton, Don Christensen, Cathy Andrews, Allan Batley and Marty Jordan.

Under 18 Bowls continues to grow, with a number of young players attending sessions at New Plymouth Bowling Club during Term 4. We are looking at working more closely with Sports Taranaki and Taranaki Secondary Schools Sports to improve access to bowls for younger people. With that in mind we have entered into a new initiative with Bowls Wellington to compete in a National Under 26 competition during the Winter season.

Parafed Taranaki and Bowls Taranaki organised a session of Adaptive Bowls for disabled people which was very well received and we look forward to hosting them again with Adaptive bowls for kids with disabilities. This will be held on the 3^rd of April, at the Indoor Stadium at Paritutu.

We would like to thank Pelorus Trust, NZCT, Aotearoa Gaming Trust, Revital Fertilisers, Abraham’s Funeral Home, Jean Sandel Retirement Village, Anderson’s Pies, Dean File – Colliers Real Estate, Darth’s Funeral Services, Tom and Amanda Crehan and the Toi Foundation for their recent sponsorship and support. We look forward to a successful conclusion of the season and hope the weather stays fine for all bowlers!

Ian Lewis – Bowls Taranaki

Our AGM will be held, 9.30am on Saturday 24th June 2023 at Stratford-Avon BC.

President, Vice-President and 3 board members to be elected. Applications for the Centre Board close on the 1st of May. Notices of Motion from clubs to be received by the 1st of May, as well as Nominations for Men’s and Women’s Selectors to be received by the 18th of May.

All Welcome.

Taranaki’s bid for glory at the New Zealand intercentre event in Christchurch is over.

There was some merit in the efforts of both the Revital Fertilisers Taranaki men, who made the quarterfinals, and the women, who effectively fell just one game short of the playoffs.

The men qualified second in their section, after four wins and two losses. The losses came against section winner Central Otago and the West Coast.

Dean Elgar led the way with five wins from six, an excellent return which included a win over two-time Dominion singles winner Shaun Scott.

The pair of Craig De Faria and Maurice Symes won four, while the fours of Adam Collins, Aidan Zittersteijn, Steve Walker and Hamish Kape won four and drew one.

Taranaki matched off with the strong Wellington side in the quarterfinals on late Saturday afternoon.

For nigh on the first hour, Elgar had parity in his singles game against Blackjack Raymond Martin, the scores being locked at 6-all. But Martin pushed away to 14-9 in front before finishing the contest off with a single, consecutive fours and a two.

De Faria and Symes had an excellent tussle with Stephen Ditfort and Andrew Kelly, who while still living in Christchurch turned out for Wellington. Coming from 7-0 down, De Faria and Symes edged in front, but they dropped a three on the home straight, eventually falling 18-14.

Kape’s four, playing Robbie Bird, Finbar McGuigan, Caleb Hope and Blake Signal, also had a close, tense match. But they too went down 14-9.

In the final wash-up in their section, the Taranaki women won two matches from five, which included a 2-1 loss to Marlborough in the final round. One further win there would have secured that match and seen Taranaki through.

Briar Atkinson won two games from five and finished with a positive differential, but was left to rue losses by two points and one point on the second day. Her only loss on the first day was 25-18 to North Harbour’s unbeaten Selina Goddard, defeat only coming after Atkinson had put up a bold show and Goddard had used weight late twice in the encounter to score a four and a three.

Taranaki’s pair of Susan Cottam and Trish Howard opened with a strong win, but found the going too tough after that, losing the last four.

The experienced four of Chris Commane, Rhonda Adams, Kristin Stampa and Val Symes had a positive return of three wins.

The finals of the Auto City Men’s Christmas Pairs will be played on Anzac Day , Tuesday 25th April at West End.

Please note the start time will now be 8.30am.

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Weather is clear in Stratford-Avon and Inglewood.

Play is expected to start on time at 9.00am.

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West End’s Dean Elgar and Paritutu’s Darren Goodin have had many top games against one another over the years.

But Monday’s final in the Taranaki men’s open singles would have to take the cake.

The duo, along with Craig De Faria, have dominated men’s singles in Taranaki bowls over the past 20 years.

And that was easy to understand why when Elgar and Goodin went point-for-point in the final of Janko Computers-sponsored event. Elgar got the glory, 21-20, but the abiding memory will be of the quality of the encounter.

It was, undoubtedly, the most intense, accurate clash between the two and those same adjectives would also apply to men’s open singles finales in the province.

Elgar’s victory gave him his seventh open singles title and his 17th in total. But at no point did he ever feel comfortable of victory, in the match that was played inside at Paritutu, after heavy rain at lunchtime saw the final transferred.

While both players scored a four each, no one was able to string a succession of ends together, such was the quality of the opponent.

That was best exemplified on the 26th end. Goodin had taken a two on the previous head – falling marginally short with his last bowl to miss victory – to lead 20-19.

On the 26th, three of the first four bowls were touchers. Goodin then ran the jack into the ditch, although was a little frustrated that the jack partially shaded off an Elgar bowl. Goodin still had shot, about 1m away. Elgar drew the shot, Goodin bettered it, and then Elgar, with his last, glanced off his third bowl to roll in to make it 20-all.

Goodin killed the next end. On the replay, Elgar drew close with his first, which remained the shot throughout.

In the semifinals at Oakura, Elgar came from 14-11 down to beat Paul Howell (Inglewood) 21-15, while Goodin accounted for Bruce Lilley (West End) 21-8.

Meanwhile, in the Jean Sandel-sponsored women’s open singles, which was also finalised inside, Paritutu’s Briar Atkinson beat Fitzroy’s Val Symes 21-9 in the decider.

It was Atkinson’s first open singles crown and third gold-star qualifying point. But assuming she sticks with Taranaki bowls, the calculators will be required within the next 30 years.

Symes led 5-0 early in the final, but by the time she scored, Atkinson had raced through to 10. That trend continued over the subsequent heads, with Atkinson drawing most consistently.

In the semifinals, at West End, Atkinson beat Susan Cottam (West End0 21-16, while Symes edged Gale Fache (Paritutu) 21-18.