It certainly was a busy weekend, starting on Saturday with some of our members taking part in the Xmas Ham Gala at the Waitarere Beach Club. It was a fine day and play was on their fast green and for Neville Turnbull, Dave Walker and Trevor Tuatara, a successful day; there were three teams that had won all their games but our club trio had the most points and came home with the top prize.
Sunday was the last day for qualifying in the top 4 of the men’s Super 7’s and Reserve 7’s Interclub competition.
Our top men’s team had only one round to play which they did successfully and they ended up in 2nd place overall. (See the Result sheet on our Web Page.)
Our Reserve teams, playing at Central Levin, had some close games; Ken won two of his three games but our Pairs and Fours won only one of their games. Even so, this was enough to get us also into the playoff top four.
We had some really close games in our fours, losing the first game against Waikanae Beach on the last end when the jack was moved by their skip to their cluster of back bowls and I wasn’t able to cut their score down from the three shots they were holding to win the game by one point!
We had a better result in our 2nd game, winning this against Paraparaumu Beach team.
Our last game was a really close battle against Ian Mahoney’s Central Levin team. Came the last end with the scores level. It came to both skip’s last bowl to win the game – we were holding the shot, the opposing skip drove, flew off a close bowl to take off our shot bowl and we were one down. I had one bowl left, down the green it went but just missed the target, and so we had our 2nd loss of the day.
Ken in his third game of Singles ended up in a close last end and needed a successful drive to save the game but he missed the target also.
Getting all the attention now was the Pairs game and this had proved to be one of those games where, for a time, all had gone well and then for one reason or another, the reverse took place. And here also, the final end was crucial, but again the target was missed – both on the green and on the scoreboard.
It had been an interesting day with ups and downs, but we still managed to take 3rd place in the final standing and will be playing in the top four play-off.
Back at our club, our Junior Men’s and Women’s Singles Championship were played and congratulations go to Bill Clelland and Lana Mahupuku for taking out the titles.
The weekend drew to a close with our club’s Christmas dinner held at the RSA, and this was a very good way to bring to a close a very busy weekend.