The team of Beth Brown (singles), Judy Robertson and Jean Young (pairs) and the fours combination of Barbara Archer (skip), Helen Carman (third), Wendy Hurring (second) and Jenny Dyhrberg (lead) made short work of an in-form Green Island team in the final on the St Kilda greens yesterday.
While results in the final may have appeared lopsided, it was far from the case in lead-up matches, where Taieri Blue scraped through section play to finish top of its section only on differential, and had to put club loyalties aside when it had to overcome Taieri Gold in the semifinal.
Green Island proved the team to beat on its road to the final, with Jan Hall (singles), Lyn Rance and Lee Grigg (pairs) and fours Faye Cosgrove, Shannon McEwan, Nancy McGregor and Margaret Hood all in commanding form, notching up some impressive victories.
Few would have predicted that a 21-8 victory to Brown over Hall in the singles, Robertson and Young scoring a 21-10 victory in the pairs over Rance and Grigg and a 13-all draw in the fours was all it took to clip the team’s ticket to the final in Auckland.
"It could have gone either way,” Brown said of the final, as she praised the opposition.
“To play in these sort of finals, it’s never going to be easy."
The Dunedin regional men’s qualifying final, between Kaikorai and Fairfield, was rained off without a bowl being bowled as a thunderstorm hit the area yesterday afternoon.
The final will now be played at the Taieri Bowling Club on Sunday at 10am.
The teams are: Kaikorai: Craig McCaw (singles), Nigel Birkbeck and Tane Payne (pairs), Russell Dawe (s), Jonty Horwell, Tom Tairoa and John Potiki (fours).
Fairfield: Wayne Hewitt (singles), Reece Aiken and Doug Thomas (pairs), Russell Reynolds, John Latimer, Kris Newell and Mike Ayers (fours).
Yesterday’s defeat was not all bad for Green Island, as it was coming off a victory. In the Dunedin Centre open fours championships earlier this month, the Green Island team of Lyn Rance, Gaynor Todd, Margaret Hoad and Lynn Baird secured the open women’s title with a 19-4 victory over the Taieri combination of Judy Robertson, Jean Young, Shona Morrison and Jenny Dhyrberg.
The Forbury Park four of Oliver Mason, Glenn Murtagh, Nigel Thompson and Duane White secured the men’s open fours title with a hard-fought 15-13 victory over the Mornington four of Allen Kannewischer, Steve Kannewischer, Phil Gilliespie and Richard Leftwich.
