Taieri Lakes, Otago still tied at top after draw
TAIERI Lakes and Otago tied 33 in the topofthetable clash in the fourth round of the metropolitan men’s senior A pennant series on Saturday.
Each team receives a point for the draw to remain tied at the top of the table with 10 points each.
Aware of the importance of the match with home advantage to Taieri, the side wheeled out two former Otago senior representatives in Brett Kennelly and Brian Shaw, who have not played many pennant matches this year.
In sharp contrast, Otago was without provincial No 2 Brandon Hodgson, Ben Patston, who was playing premier rugby, and Jason Hughes, who is anxiously awaiting the arrival of his first child.
Otago claimed the top two games with Duncan Croudis and Tyrone Ratahi posting their fourth wins of the series in beating Ken Shaw and Mat Lee respectively.
The only other pennant player to win all four games this year is Taieri No 3 Mark Andrews, who beat Aaron Charteris to achieve this goal.
Taieri was in the driving seat ahead in the other matches and levelled at 22 when Hayden Robertson beat Will Young to win the battle of junior players.
But Balmacewen came up with a Houdini act when No 5 John McIntee won the final hole to snatch a half with Kennelly.
No 6 Thomas Gillan won the last three holes to escape with a valuable half with Shaw and tie the contest.
St Clair Blue had its first win of the series when beating Chisholm 42 despite playing away from home.
The win is timely for the top St Clair team as it will have home advantage for the last six rounds of the competition.
St Clair’s top three of Jakob Bleach, Conor Jamison and Connor Ross all posted wins while No 6 Ross Colquhoun got the team home by beating Matt Heaton on the 16th green.
No 5 Jason Pegler had a solid win over Tony Giles for a threewin, onehalf record joining Croudis, Ratahi and Andrews as the only unbeaten players who have played all four rounds in this year’s event.
Island Park shares third place with Chisholm after winning an away game against St Clair Gold 3.52.5.
No 1 Michael Smith, No 4 Michael Minty and No 6 Carl Horsnall all posted good wins for Island Park while Seb Baker and promising junior Parker Aluesi both won on the 14th green for St Clair.
No 3 Monty Wong was the difference between the two teams halving with Nathan Swift to put Island Park in front.