Big two continue to set hot pace

Perennial favourites Canterbury and Auckland again look the dominant teams after two days of the national women’s interprovincial tournament in New Plymouth.

Defending champions Canterbury backed up their opening day’s performance with an easy win in the morning over Hawke’s Bay-Poverty Bay before they thumped Southland 5-0 in the afternoon as the skies threatened to open up.

Conditions remained calm for the players though, with Canterbury having no complaints as they worked their way past Southland in clinical fashion.

Their most dominant performance came at No 4 where Catherine Bell thrashed Helen Baird 8 and 7 while there was a similar scoreline at No 2 where Juliana Hung beat Robyn Pullar 7 and 6.

Auckland had a frighteningly easy win over Otago in the afternoon after they destroyed their southern rivals 5-0, the same scoreline that they dispatched their day one opponents by.

All of the Auckland order had comfortable wins with No 1 Rose Zheng leading the way with a 6 and 5 victory over Abigael Crawford.

Bay of Plenty also remain unbeaten but had a tougher than expected match against Taranaki in the afternoon before prevailing 41⁄2-1⁄2. While the final score looked flattering, Taranaki were in the hunt for the most part with the biggest final margin 4 and 2 at the top and bottom of the order.

Canterbury had an even easier time of it in round three with a 41⁄2-1⁄2 win over Hawke’s BayPoverty Bay.

After having the bye in the first round and comfortable 4-1 victory over Otago in the second round, Canterbury dominated from the outset with top two players Amelia Garvey and Juliana Hung having 5 and 4 wins over Angela Jones and Tessa McDonald respectively.

While Hillary O’Connor had to share her match with Sara Deam, Canterbury’s Catherine Bell and Jasmine Rou made sure of the tie with their wins.

Other features of round three was North Harbour’s dominant 4-1 win over Tasman and Bay of Plenty’s encouraging 31⁄2-11⁄2 victory over Wellington.