Bowls3Five – report by Lindsay Knight

Bowls3Five – Report by Lindsay Knight

Takapuna’s former Black Jack international Wendy Jensen again showed her liking for the format by winning for the second time in the past three seasons Bowls North Harbour’s three-five tournament at the weekend.

  Two years ago she partnered Simon Poppleton and Lisa Dickson to win not only the centre event but also the national play-off, which this year will be held in May,

   This season Jensen skipped a new line-up in Ian Hardy and fifth-year player in Derek Brien and the combination proved just as consistent.

  In the final Jensen’s Continental Cars beat the Orewa Seagulls line-up of Elaine McClintock, Kerin Roberts, both multiple centre title-holders, and Kerry Greenhalgh in two straight sets.

 Orewa made the final with a semi-final win over a strong Birkenhead Jet Couriers line-up of John Hindmarch, Peter Kawana and Connie Mathieson.

  The Jensen triple’s path to the final saw it pitted against two other Takapuna combinations and in each of the quarter-final and semi-final was sorely tested.

 In the quarter-final the Jensen triple prevailed against the Takapuna Forsyth Barr line-up of Brent Malcolm, Wynne Gray and Keiko Kurohara only after a tiebreaker, and in the semi-final beat Takapuna Heartland Bank’s Simon Poppleton, Raymond Skoglund and Emily Jim by the same narrow margin.

 Emily has recently arrived from the Cook Islands to train in Auckland for the upcoming Oceania tournament.

 Takapuna proved five teams for post-section play, Birkenhead, Orewa, Helensville and Mairangi Bay each two and Hobsonville, Browns Bay and Manly one each.

 The Centre is again indebted to the Browns Bay club, whose facilities and greens made it an ideal venue for what was a successful carnival of high octane bowls.