Lawn Bowls

Taranaki’s champion-of-champions finals weekend is shaping up as a celebration of clubs right across the province.

Six of the 10 events had the preliminary rounds completed over the weekend and eight different clubs will be represented amongst those 12 finalists in the TCM Limited-sponsored series.

The fours events were played on Saturday at Stratford-Avon, with Bill Foley (New Plymouth) and Darren Goodin (Paritutu) emerging as the finalists in the men’s event, while Heather Johns (Paritutu) and Liz Johnstone (Waitara) are the surviving women’s sides.

Foley’s team of Graeme Earl, Ian Avery and Wayne Te Huki were decisive in their three wins, which included a 29-13 semifinal effort over Okato’s Mark Grogan, Mickey Manson, Ken Kape and skip Dale McEldowney.

Goodin, skipping Nathan Goodin, John Zittersteijn and Rodger Hassall, survived a couple in scares in the earlier rounds before beating defending champion Paddy Deegan (Opunake) 19-7 in the last four. Deegan’s side of Levi Davis, Daryl MacKenzie and Kewene Ratahi had been impressive in the previous rounds, ousting Scott Roberts (Tower) and John Garrud (West End).

Johns has the same side that won the Dominion fours in 2013 – Carolyn Harris, Debbie Smith and Val Keightley. They beat West End’s Shirley Simpson, Molly Nagle, Denise Cottam and Susan Cottam 19-7 in the third round.

Johnstone’s side of Norma Jane, Ann Hinton and Kathy Gower won its semi 18-7 over Tower’s Alethea Rowlands, Hazel Schwartfeger, Alison Sayer and Patty Symes.

Sunday saw the singles take place, with Susan Cottam and June Ward (Lepperton) advancing emphatically from the senior women’s semifinals at Fitzroy.

Cottam beat Jilly Kimber (Waitara) 21-5, while the ageless Ward, who last won the event in 2008, was also merciless in defeating the 2013 champion Barbara Batley (Paritutu) 21-4.

In the junior women’s at Lepperton, both semifinals were also one-sided. Judy Crawford (Fitzroy) beat Alethea Rowlands (Tower) 21-4 while Briar Atkinson (Paritutu), the champion from two seasons ago, accounted for Tina Quilter (Lepperton) 21-3.

Both men’s singles events were played at West End, with Grant Anderson (Tower) and Dean Elgar (West End) the two senior finalists.

Elgar, having won the open singles last month, remained on track to do the double, beating Neil Earley (Inglewood) 21-5 in the semifinals.

Anderson highlighted that he is back operating at a level similar to when he reigned supreme as a skip in Taranaki. After edging Darren Goodin (Paritutu) 21-19 in the last eight, he beat Stratford-Avon stalwart John Sextus, who had belied his 82 years throughout the day with some tremendous draw play, 21-10 in the last four.

Sporting experience overcame youth in the two junior semifinals.

Accomplished snooker player, Lindsay Franklin (Stratford-Avon), who recently won the first year singles, came from 19-6 down to deny Nathan Goodin (Paritutu) 21-20.

Franklin will meet New Plymouth’s Michael Mathews in the decider. Mathews, who first moved from England to take up a semi-professional soccer contract with Dunedin City, called on his composure to defeat Camron Horo (Rahotu) 21-14.

Wellington dominated both the men’s and women’s events of the regional intercentre bowls contest at Paritutu on Saturday.

In the final analysis, it was a comprehensive victory for both teams from the capital. But that was not before some anxious moments.

Conversely, Revital Fertilisers Taranaki came up short. The men finished second, while the women had a disappointing day, winning just one game and drawing one other from the nine played. They shared third with Wanganui.

In the men’s section, Wellington won its three matches against Kapiti, Taranaki and Wanganui.

After Taranaki had squeaked past Wanganui 2-1 in the morning, it created a somewhat premature final against Wellington in the second round.

Seamus Curtin proved a little too hot for Darren Goodin in the singles, winning 25-18. Goodin had pipped Gavin Scrivener 25-24 in the opening round to secure the Wanganui match.

Dean Elgar and Hamish Kape, after a first-up one-point loss, levelled the ledger beating Stephen Ditfort and Raymond Martin 19-13.

That meant it all came down to the fours. Craig De Faria’s quartet of Adam Collins, Dave Wilson and Steve Walker, which had opened impressively 21-8 over Ray Park, trailed Ben King’s quartet for the entire match. However, the deficit had been reduced to one shot playing what became a short, loose, final end.

Taranaki held three on the charge over, but King drew the shot to ensure an 11-9 victory that clinched the match for Wellington.

Wellington completed their dominance beating Wanganui 2-1 in the last round, although Scrivener ousted Curtin 25-16.

At the same time, Taranaki beat Kapiti 2-1, with Goodin and De Faria winning.

Taranaki were never in the hunt in the women’s event.

Wellington, with a youthful and talented side, were emphatic in the first round with a 3-0 whitewash. Kristin Stampa’s team of Anne Brophy, Susan Cottam and Trish Howard, added a degree of respectability losing 16-12 to Nicole Toomey in the fours without ever threatening to win.

Val McEldowney took on the singles role in round two, narrowly falling 25-22 to Jane Selby-Paterson (Kapiti). Kapiti also took the pair and four, which left both them and Wellington with perfect records heading into the last round.

Wellington took that clash 3-0 to secure overall honours. But Lisa White had to come from behind to deny Selby-Paterson 25-23 in the singles. It was a similar situation in the pairs, where Dale Rayner and Kaaren Guilford won the last four ends to edge Audrey Stevenson and Diane McGill 16-15. Toomey’s four won 21-9 over Eileen Jones.

Taranaki’s last round match with Wanganui ended in a tie. Margy Carey and Rhonda Adams took the pairs, while Sue Winter drew the singles.

West End’s Dean Elgar collected his official 15th Taranaki title in emphatic fashion on Monday.

Elgar withstood a tough and a long day to claim his sixth Taranaki men’s open singles crown, beating Okato’s Hamish Kape 21-10 in the final at West End.

Elgar put on an excellent display, dominating the majority of the final of the Janko Computers-sponsored event and showing that the 2017 Dominion singles winner remains a top talent.

The victory enabled Elgar to be awarded a second bar to his gold star for 15 titles. Elgar’s 15 Taranaki titles were accumulated in the open singles (2003, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2022), Christmas pairs (2013, 2019), open triples (2015, 2021), champion-of-champions singles (2010, 2015, 2019), champion-of-champions triples (2017) and champion-of-champions fours (2011).Three earlier mixed pairs events pre-amalgamation do not count. In addition, Elgar has also won the Bill Smee twice, the NZ intercentre, the Dominion fours (2019) and a Manawatu Superbowls.

In the final, Elgar jumped out to a 6-1 lead and after nine ends that had become 15-4.

Kape rallied, closing to 16-10 in arrears, before Elgar took two singles and a three to wrap up the title.

Both earlier semifinals were one-sided, with Elgar beating Bruce Phillips (Patea) 21-8 and Kape defeating Dave Wilson (West End) 21-9.

After 34 players had qualified by lunchtime on Sunday, Elgar received the roughest end of the draw and needed to win six games in post section.

Of the four games he played on Monday, his quarterfinal against Daryl Read (Paritutu) was his trickiest, Elgar coming from 20-15 down to emerge a 21-20 victor.

Meanwhile, New Plymouth’s Val McEldowney won the Jean Sandel-sponsored Taranaki women’s open singles which was also finalised on Monday at West End.

It was McEldowney’s second victory in the singles and she now has 14 Taranaki titles in total.

She beat clubmate Margy Carey 21-17 in the decider.

While Carey did hold the edge in the opening third of the match, leading 7-5, the next stanza was dominated by McEldowney. The 2013 Dominion singles winner drew more consistently to create a 19-11 lead.

However, Carey then produced her best bowls of the final, taking the next four ends to close up the game at 19-17. But McEldowney drew two shots on the next to conclude the contest.

Carey was especially impressive in the semifinals, ousting Kristin Stampa (Hawera Park) 21-8, while McEldowney had a ding-dong clash with Cathy Andrews (Paritutu), prevailing 21-18.

Two post section rounds on Sunday afternoon at Paritutu had whittled the 14 qualifiers down to the semifinalists.

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Thank you all for your patience as we deal with Covid-19.

Prior to the draw being released on Wednesday for this weekend’s Open singles, we had had five pullouts from the men’s field and two from the women’s event. All vacancies had been filled by Wednesday.

In the last 48 hours, we have had a further five withdrawals from the mens and two from the womens. The womens field has again been filled and the draw will be updated later today. The men’s field, however, is currently three short. If we can not fill these holes, wins will occur by default. Again, the draw will be finalised later today.

For the Bayleys Real Estate-sponsored Hugh Moss junior pairs, we have been blown away with a record entry of 48 teams. Section play occurs on March 19 at Stratford-Avon and Inglewood. Because of Covid, once again, the draw will not be released until the Wednesday prior to the event.

The draw for both the men’s Janko Computers-sponsored Open singles and the women’s Jean Sandel-sponsored Open singles will be released on Wednesday. The events are scheduled for March 12-14.

This decision has been made because of the risk of further pull-outs because of Covid-19 and the need to perform a redraw.

Currently there are 84 in the men’s singles and 40 in the women’s singles. Two further entries are required at this stage to enable the perfect draw, which is divisible by six. Players will play four games and mark two between 9am Saturday and lunchtime on Sunday. Post section will follow on Sunday afternoon and on Monday.

West End will act as headquarters, with play also at Paritutu, Fitzroy and Inglewood.

Paritutu have done the double in the triples.

The New Plymouth-based club won both the men’s and women’s open triples titles on Saturday.

In the Abrahams-sponsored women’s event, the victorious side was Briar Atkinson, Bridget Fletcher and Jackie Moeahu. The men’s Andersons Pies-sponsored title went to Darren Goodin, Hamish Kape and Don Christensen.

The victory by Atkinson, who produced a number of excellent shots throughout the day, was a big step in the career of the 17-year-old.

In the final, played at Fitzroy, her side edged away in the second half of the match to beat Opunake’s Pauline Davy, Rita Davey and Chris Commane 20-11.

After Atkinson’s side had led 9-4 after eight ends, Davy’s team levelled the ledger at 10-all after 12 of the scheduled 21 ends.

Atkinson’s front two then found their groove better, with the next five ends going to Paritutu to give them a match-winning 17-10 lead.

It was the third Taranaki title for both Moeahu and Fletcher and a second for Atkinson.

In the earlier semifinals, Atkinson had also pulled away in the second half of the match to beat clubmates Barbara Harvey, Berys Norgate and Amanda Crehan 22-14. Davy needed an extra end to squeeze past New Plymouth’s Heather Thomas, Val Fleming and Jopie Half 19-17.

In the men’s decider at Stratford-Avon, Goodin’s team were emphatic in the final, winning 22-6 over West End’s Garry Murfitt, Darren Scott and Bruce Colgan.

The mood of the match started on the opening end, when Goodin drove off a Colgan shot to secure a four. While Murfitt responded with a single and a two, that was as close as they got. Goodin led 11-3 after six, then 17-4 after 10 ends. Just 16 heads were completed, as Goodin collected his 24th Taranaki title, Kape secured his fourth and Christensen his 12th.

Both Goodin and Murfitt produced some impressive attacking shots in the earlier semifinals. Goodin overcame a small, mid-game deficit to beat Tower’s Anderson brothers, Mark, Grant and Brendan, 21-15. Murfitt held on to beat clubmates Paul Darbyshire, Bruce Hall and Steve Temperton 20-17 after leading by two shots playing the last end.

Meanwhile, Okato claimed the Radius Care-sponsored Taranaki men’s Shield at Vogeltown on Saturday. In a close finish, Okato president and skip Bruce Peacock drew a mighty shot to ensure victory for his side.

Okato finished with four wins and one draw from six games to head off Inglewood (two wins and one draw) and Tower (two wins).

Stratford-Avon’s Lindsay Franklin is the 2022 TCB-sponsored Taranaki First Year singles champion.

Franklin won the title this afternoon at Paritutu, beating West End’s Mark McDonald 21-17 in the final. The well-known Franklin, a former barber and also a competitive 8-ball pool player, he had to endure a few anxious moments against McDonald, who has previously established himself as a most competent competitor at indoor bowls.

The final was locked at 7-all, before a three, a single and a further three to Franklin gave him a handy 14-7 lead. McDonald closed to 15-13 behind, and then leveled at 17-all. However, Franklin, the son of country music legends Rex and Noelene, then claimed an invaluable three and a single to clinch the title.

Sharing third-equal were Paul Eaton and Terry Hancock, both of West End.

It was the fifth year that the First Year singles has been held.

Previous winners:

2018 Neville Nodder (Fitzroy)

2019 Todd Curtis (Tower)

2020 Amanda Crehan (Paritutu)

2021 Kerry Mullan (Tower)

2022 Lindsay Franklin (Stratford-Avon).

For full results, go to: First Year singles results

The Taranaki junior Bowls3five event was concluded at Lepperton this evening with Paritutu 3 (Briar Atkinson, Tina Atkinson-Watt, Nathan Goodin) defeating Inglewood (Len Spick, Chris Gyde, Kevin Koch) 3-2, 6-1 in the final. The beaten semi finalists were Paritutu 1 and Stratford-Avon 2.