Results – The Grove Orewa, BNH Men’s Fours Championship – 8 & 9 February 2025
Takapuna’s strong representation, six combinations among the entry of 24, was rewarded when one of its teams impressively won The Grove Orewa BNH men’s fours championships at the weekend.
In the final at Takapuna. the host club’s Graham Skellern-skipped four of Brent Malcolm at three, Bob Telfer at two and Brett O’Riley at lead beat Manly’s Keith Benson, Andy Dorrance, Matthew Higginson and Kevin Rainsford. The Skellern four needed just 11 of the scheduled 15 ends to win 21-8, giving Skellern, Telfer and O’Riley their first North Harbour senior titles. But, of course, Skellern and O’Riley are both vastly experienced bowlers, with several titles in other centres and both have competed successfully at national levels. Malcolm has been the only previous Harbour winner, taking the centre champion of champions singles title last season. Though all four have had plenty of distinctions in past seasons, their win was perhaps among the least expected of the six teams, exactly a quarter of the total entry, which competed in this event under the Takapuna club auspices.
Skellern has played only occasionally in the centre and indeed at Takapuna, this season, Malcolm has been affected by illness, Telfer has just returned to the centre after a spell in his native Southland and O’Riley has been more involved in high profile administrative roles. Yet there was no sign of any rustiness as the four deservedly won the title. To make Sunday’s post-section they emerged on Saturday from some highly competitive qualifying rounds, climaxed by a third round win the section from a strong Riverhead team of Duane McDonald, Gordon Smith, Grant Goodwin and Steve Cox, all multiple centre champions. Then in the quarter and semi-finals they beat two good Birkenhead teams, that of John Hindmarch, Chad Nathan, Mike Haggart and Even Thomas and then Nigel Drew, Brian Wilson, Peter Nathan and Mark Rumble.
For a time on Sunday it seemed as if it might be an all Takapuna final, for in drawing the bye and automatically going into the semi the line-up of Jerry Belcher, Steve Hoeft, Bevan Smith and Ian Hardy has been in imposing form in the qualifying rounds. They won all three matches, including a crucial opener against another Takapuna team of Simon Poppleton, Philip Skoglund, Jason Parker and Raymond Skoglund. But in the semi they were well beaten by the Manly line-up of Benson, Dorrance, Higginson and Rainsford, who could be more than proud of their effort. Most of this four are either still in junior ranks or not long out of it.
In the other quarter-final the Birkenhead line-up of Drew, Wilson, Peter Nathan and Rumble had a 26-6 win over Wellsford’s Steve Card, Trevor Minty, Clint Highfield and Nigel Sanderson.
The field was was of a high quality, ensuring that all the matches in the six sections were extremely competitive. That was shown in the calibre of some of the teams who missed post-section play. Among them were the celebrated Browns Bay bowlers, Neil Fisher, John Walker, Colin Rogan and Lindsay Gilmore, Helensville’s Carlson Barnett, Bart Robertson, Ron Cowper and Brendon McPhail, plus the Riverhead four skipped by McDonald. The teams of Fisher and Barnett had the ill luck to be in probably the most cut-throat section of all, with Browns Bay effectively out after the first round whey they were beaten by Helensville.