Rain delays at men’s open fours

A heavy downpour around morning tea time caused some delays for players on the opening day of the Taranaki men’s Open fours tournament yesterday.

The worst affected was section

10 at Fitzroy, which had more than an hour off the green.

It meant that only three of the seven round one games in that section finished before the required

1.30pm time expired.

As a result, the players were required to complete those matches after the afternoon round had concluded.

‘‘We were hoping to dodge the rain on day one. While Fitzroy was hit, the co-operation of the players is greatly appreciated,’’ Bowls Taranaki chair Grant Hassall said.

There were a number of interesting outcomes on day one.

Four-time champion Dan Delany (Royal Oak) started the day playing No 3 for Teo Turua. They had a ding-dong battle with Mike Oldfield (Tauranga South), which the Bay of Plenty side took 20-19.

Oldfield led 10-0 after six ends, but through 16 heads, the ledger had been levelled at 13-all.

At the start of the last end, Oldfield led by two, but Turua held two shots. However, Oldfield rose to the occasion and rested on the second shot to secure victory.

After a tough tussle in the second round, against the wellappointed Victoria (Wellington) side skipped by Raymond Martin, Oldfield went down 30-20. Martin won twice.

Delany took over the skipping reins in the afternoon and got home easily 25-8 over Kerry Parker (Bannockburn).

In the same section, Grant Pease (Fitzroy), whose team is being skipped by John Gray, opened with two big wins.

A number of local teams started with two wins including both of the finalists from last year, Bruce Phillips (Tower) and Craig De Faria (West End).

Other Taranaki teams with positive starts were Stefan McCartain (Paritutu), Ian Lowry (Rahotu), Paddy Deegan (Opunake), Graeme Crawford (Paritutu), Garry Murfitt (West End), Darren Goodin (Paritutu), Ron Ranford (Fitzroy), Peter

Charteris (Rahotu) and Rodney Woods (Opunake).

Cary Pinker (Wanganui East) had two nail-biting matches. In the morning round, Pinker ran off Bill Read’s shot bowl to win 24-23. But in the afternoon, Pinker was edged

22-21 by Ian Adams, after the Lepperton lead Don Hodge drew a toucher on the last end.

In some of the feature morning games, Paul Matheson (Halswell) beat Neville Hill (Royal Oak) 31-14 and Jeremy Brosnan (Glen Eden) overcame Mark Anderson (Tower)

24-15. All four teams won in the afternoon.