Representatives Report – 15 & 16 March 2025

Spirited second day recoveries in the Octagonal one-to-five year tournament at Mairangi Bay on Sunday by both the men’s and women’s teams gave North Harbour some consolation for what otherwise was a forgettable representative weekend for the centre.

Particularly disappointing was the return of the open representative teams in Wellington, with both men’s and women’s failing to make Sunday’s post-section rounds.
Though it was a little late, the one-to-five Harbour representatives deserved credit for their second day efforts which catapulted both the men’s and women’s teams into respectable third places on each ladder.

The men’s team of Clinton Smith, Andy Dorrance, Guy Robson, Willie Tonga, David den Hertog, Wayne Harris, Alan McQuoid and Mark Brown did not do itself justice on the first day, losing two and half to half to Auckland, 2-1 to Hawke’s Bay and 2-1 to Northland, with just the one win, 2-1 over Thames Valley.
But there were much better results on Sunday with wins 3-0 over Counties-Manukau and 2-1 over each of Bay of Plenty and Waikato.  There might well have been a clean sweep, too, over Waikato but for the four of Tonga, den Hertog, Harris and Brown dropping a maximum eight on the eighth end in what generally was a tight contest.
There was an impressive effort from singles specialist Clint Smith, who won all his Sunday matches and finished with a return in what is a pressure position of five wins from seven matches.

Unfortunately, most of this season’s men’s squad will be ineligible for junior events next, leaving selector-coach Ian McKenzie with a challenging rebuilding exercise.

That won’t be the case for the women’s one-to-five squad, as most if not all have a few seasons left at this level. Selector-coach Graham Dorreen thus had cause to be delighted with the second day improvement and the promise and composure shown over the final three rounds.

He commented: “The girls have made great progress over the past seven months,” adding that many of them had been “very new to rep bowls.”

The team of Carol Voshaar, Jeni Hart, Deanne Bronlund, just a second year player who backed up Jeni well in the pairs, Karen Vaissiere, Beryl Truebody, Julie Chhour, Jo Staines and Jo Wyatt also incurred several first day losses of only a shot or two.  Harbour drew with Hawke’s Bay in the first round, but a 3-0 third round win over Thames was offset by clean sweep defeats to Auckland and Bay Plenty, whose manager was the legendary Harbour player, Ruth Lynch.

Harbour, like the men, were unbeaten on the second day, winning 3-0 over Northland, 3-0 over Counties-Manukau and 2-1 over Waikato.

Auckland, with an emphasis on youth from its successful secondary school program, won both men’s and women’s competitions. Its strength was illustrated by the fact several of its players have already achieved at open levels, including Henrietta Scott, who was a finalist at this season’s national pairs championship.

In the open inter-centre championships Harbour’s men’s team at least showed improvement on the second day to beat Central Otago 2-1 in the fourth round and West Coast 3-0 in the fifth.  There was also a 2-1 win in the opening round against Wanganui. But this was off-set by a 2-1 loss to Northland and then a 0-3 defeat to Hawke’s Bay.  One piece of encouragement that the Harbour team did include two younger bowlers as investments for the future in Matt Higginson and Brendon McPhail.

The women’s result was especially disappointing as it followed what had been an excellent preparation in last month’s Octagonal win. The first day was especially dismal with losses to Far North, 3-0 to Dunedin and 2-1 to Wairarapa. There was a second day draw with Manawatu but a 2-1 loss to Marlborough meant a last place finish in the qualifying section.

In the men’s final Wellington beat Auckland 2-1 and Bay of Plenty won the women’s final 2-1 over Nelson.