Results – BNH 2-4-2 Mixed Pairs – 16th & 17th Sept. 2023 – by Lindsay Knight

One of the centre’s golden oldies, Browns Bay’s Paulette Mytton, turned the clock back in helping club-mate Sean Mulholland, win Bowls North Harbour’s 2-4-2 mixed championship pairs title at the weekend.
In Sunday’s final at Hobsonville Mulholland and Mytton beat Helensville’s Carlson Barnett and Sue Hart 11-6.

Though playing more as a social bowler in recent years, Paulette showed she has lost little of the touch which saw her win several seasons ago two national titles. The first was in the championship fours in 1999 when she was lead for three legendary players in Marlene Castle, the late Carole Fredrick and Mary Gulbrandsen. And the second came two years later with Castle in the championship pairs.
She, of course, is a centre gold star holder, having achieved that distinction as far back as the 2006-07 season when she last won a centre event, the champion of champion fours.

Mulholland, by many years her junior and barely a 10-year bowler, moved to within one title of his own gold star, having won the premier pennants and champion of champion fours in 2019 and last season the champion of champion pairs.

It was a momentous effort by both players for both in qualifying and in Sunday’s post-section they were against some accomplished opponents in what was an intensely competitive tournament with several top combinations failing to qualify.

In the round of 16 they beat club-mate Brian Wilson and Jan Harrison, in the quarter-finals Manly’s Kevin Rainsford and Lauren Mills and in the semi-finals, by just one shot 12-11, David Eades now with Birkenhead, but playing in this event with an old Orewa club-mate Dot Greenwood.

It was an especially fine effort by the latter two to make the semis and for Greenwood, who has been playing for many seasons and is a fine draw bowler but with no centre titles to her name, a career highlight. They only bowed out in the semi-final after an extra end and a tight umpire’s measure.

The beaten finalists, Barnett and Hart, are relatively new arrivals in the centre, with Barnett having been previously a successful bowler in the Northland centre and Hart with Onehunga and Royal Oak in the Auckland centre.
Their feat in making the final showed how much depth the admirable Helensville club will muster this season, for two other Helensville sides made the last 16, the family combinations of club stalwart Ron Cowper and daughter Sharon Parker and the Clarks, Callum and Kelly.
Cowper and Parker lost in the quarter-finals to Barnett and Hart, who earlier in the round of 16 ousted two multiple centre champions in John Walker and Lisa Dickson and then in the semi-finals Birkenhead’s brother and sister, Chad and Millie Nathan 12-7.

The other quarter-finalists were Lionel Drew and Adele Ineson, from Birkenhead and Takapuna respectively, and Manly’s Skye Renes and Brendon Walton.

With several greens still recovering from the effects of last summer’s storms Bowls North Harbour thanks Hobsonville as the headquarters and Manly and Takapuna for making their carpets available for this pipe-opener to the season.