Report – The Grove Orewa Women’s Triples and the Dick Bree Memorial Men’s Triples – 9 & 10 November 2024
The already phenomenal record that Colin Rogan, John Walker and Neil Fisher have in North Harbour bowls grew even further when the Browns Bay trio won the Dick Bree Memorial, Men’s championship triples at the weekend. In Sunday’s final at Takapuna they beat Riverhead’s Billy Fulton, Tony Garelja and Grant Goodwin 19-9 after 16 of the scheduled 18 ends to bring the overall tally they’ve had in Harbour championships to a staggering 80.
It was Fisher’s 10th Harbour title to give him a bar to his gold star which comes on top of his many Auckland and national honours. For Rogan it was his 39th title and Walker’s 31st.
The latest win continued, too, the dominance both Colin and John have had in this event over many seasons. They have won it now seven times, twice with Brent Turner, twice with Ross Haresnape and now three times with Fisher.
Though eventually well beaten in the final, it was another grand effort by the Riverhead club which has been boosted in the past few years by bowlers mainly in the west of Auckland switching to Harbour, such as Goodwin and Steve Cox. And now Garelja, who has won 12 Auckland titles, has joined them and, while he has played little in recent seasons, he expects to be more active as Riverhead now is his only club.
In the semi-finals Browns Bay beat a promising team from Orewa, Brendon McPhail, Kerry Greenhalgh and Simon Reesby, while Riverhead beat Takapuna’s Wynne Gray, Bevan Smith and Dennis Hale.
Brown Bay’s biggest test came in the quarter-finals, against a Takapuna line-up of Simon Poppleton, Jason Parker and Raymond Skoglund. Brown’s Bay won this match with its very last bowl from skip Neil Fisher. Walker later described this clash as having been worthy of being a final. Takapuna was 15-9 up after 13 ends and on the last was holding the game, being one up on the board and holding the winning shot. But with his last bowl Fisher brilliantly sat out the shot bowl to gain two himself and a 17-16 victory.
Takapuna had no fewer than three of its teams in the play-offs, with the Gray-skipped team clashing with club-mates, Jerry Belcher, Ian Hardy and Steve Hoeft, in the quarter-finals, gaining a 17-13 win. Takapuna had another section winner in Chris Taylor, Walter Howden and Murray Mathieson, but they were the unlucky team ousted by the Belcher-skipped team in the play-off game staged late on Saturday between the eighth and ninth section winners.
The high standard of the competition was shown by some of the sides who missed qualifying, including Helensville, which had Carlson Barnett and Bart Robertson from last season’s winning combination.
Lisa Dickson won her 21st Harbour title and Lauren Mills her third when they teamed up with skip Millie Nathan to win the women’s championship, winning an excellent final against a brave Manly team of Irene Donaldson, Maureen Howden and Jan Harrison 20-15.
Lisa and Lauren in recent seasons have played most of their Harbour bowls with Takapuna, but used the plural membership provisions to join Millie’s Birkenhead and played under that club’s banner, with Millie adding another title to the gold star she achieved a couple of seasons ago. In making the play-offs they were in imposing form in section qualifying with three big wins.
In the semi-finals the Nathan-skipped trio beat Manly’s Helen Briant, Margaret Eames 26-16 and Kathy Stevens, while Manly, with Jan Harrison in great form at lead, had a surprisingly comfortable win 20-13 over Mairangi Bay’s Elaine McClintock, Kerin Roberts and Judi Farkash.
While there was a small entry in the women’s championship of just 16 teams in four sections, the standard of play was also high, as shown by the many fine players and teams who missed the semi-finals.
