I wasn’t available to play this weekend, so asked selector Ken for a report on the last and important round of Men’s Interclub played yesterday, which he has done and is as follows:
Our men’s Super 7s team qualified for the top four play offs next weekend with a strong performance at Paraparaumu on Sunday. The first games of the day were against the strong Central combination. In the singles Jim Bentley played Peter Petherick. Jim trailed all the way in this game being behind 2-10 at one stage but fought back to eventually go down 17-25. Jim was putting more bowls close to the jack but Peter was able to play the key shots better in this game.
In the pairs Ken Hayward (skip) and Grant Pratt played against Brian Woolston and Dave Wishart. This game was close all the way with neither team gaining a lead of more than four points at any stage. The key was on the penultimate end when Ken ran the kitty into the ditch to score four shots to open up a three point lead. Another point was added on the final end for a hard- won victory.
The Neville Turnbull skipped four led all the way against Phil Harris’s team in their match. The team had two positional changes as a result of Ian Wenham’s withdrawal but the good practice on Friday night paid dividends and Steve Felgitscher, Paul Gardner and Omeka Feaunati all contributed to a solid team effort.
Thus, two wins in the morning set the team up very well and all that was left was to consolidate the position against Waikanae in the afternoon round. Jim Bentley led the way with a 25-8 demolition of Peter Thompson, and Ken Hayward and Grant Pratt continued their good form with a win over Doug Scoble and Warren Harding. The team had already clinched fourth place by the time Neville’s four were halfway through their match so it did not matter that they went down by three points.
A very satisfying day and for the record the placings were: 1 Raumati South 2 Paraparaumu Beach 3 Central 4 Levin 5 Waitarere Beach 6 Kapiti 7 Waikanae and 8 Waikanae Beach. The team will practice again on Friday evening and are confident of putting up a strong showing in the play-offs on Saturday.
The men’s Reserve 7s playing at Central performed well to record four wins out of six but this was not enough to lift them to the top four. The women’s Reserve team only managed two wins at Otaki and on the information available when they arrived back in Levin they would have been very lucky if they secured fourth place.
Thanks Ken, a great result, and we look forward to further success next weekend.