The final tournament of the 1-8 Winter fours, the Sorrill Cup,  was held at Browns Bay on Sunday.  The weather was not great to start with and got worse.  Showers and gusty cross winds prevailed until around 2pm when a heavy downpour brought bowling to a halt with the fourth round not played.

Mairangi Bay had four teams entered.

Gaye Horne, Barry Baillie, Glenda Rountree and Joy Watkinson.
Roger Potter, Michael Thomas, Bill Lowe and Graeme Storey.
Judi Farkash, Flora Macdonald, Glyn Taylor and Rosemary Nicol.
Stuart Mackay, Ralph Cullen, Jane Mackay, and Annie McGrath

Please find some reports from each of the teams.

Mairangi Rascals, Gaye’s team.
The morning weather forecast promised a small reprieve from the heavy rain on  Saturday and overnight.   All rinks at Browns Bay were in play.

The team of Gaye Horne, Barry Baillie, Glenda Rountree and Joy Watkinson picked the card rinks 10, 2 4, 6. The competition was 10 ends with no time limit. Rink 10 is not an easy rink to play, and our opposition was a Browns Bay Team of four men, quite new bowlers but we heard they are very keen and practice almost every day. Mairangi won the first end with one shot however Browns Bay showed their knowledge of how 10 plays and soon we were struggling to win ends. Playing 10th end we were down 11/9, with BB holding 3 shots with the skips still to play. Fortunately we had back bowls and I was able to run the jack into the ditch and my bowl stayed with it and we holding 2. BB skip still had a bowl to play, he just missed drawing past our 2 shot so we managed to draw the game 11 all but only won 4 for the 10 ends.

Second game on rink 2 we drew a strong Orewa team (eventual overall winners). A team of 3 men 1 lady. We struggled against the great draw bowling of Alan McQuoid and Wayne Harris. The wind was definitely a factor and MB team found it difficult to take sufficient green playing the wide side.  Not much to report on a game we lost 17/6.

For the third game we moved to rink 4 to play Sunnybrae (3 men 1 lady). We picked up our play somewhat at the start of this game, winning the first 6 ends with a score of 11/0. Ends 7 we dropped a four!!   End 8 we dropped 2, when rain stopped play and a decision was made that 8 ends would constitute the finish of the game and no further play would take place as the greens were flooding. Lucky to win 11/6

A disappointing day with one and a half wins but all team members could come away knowing they played some good bowls, on a green that is not the easiest to play on.

Next year????

JARS Team
The cancelled call due to weather didn’t happen, so the JARS team (Jane, Annie, Ralph, Stuart) presented themselves as opponents to a very sharp Hobsonville Team. Numbers won’t be mentioned but the scorecard looked sorry. The opponents were very nice folks (all men) so the loss wasn’t too bitter. Next up was an all-male team from Browns Bay, once again no numbers, sad looking scorecard but gentlemen players, so no hard feelings.

Re-fuelled after lunch we played 8 ends against another all-male team from Hobsonville. We had a complete turn-around and the scoreboard was looking in our favour when the call to cease play after 8 ends was made due to inclement weather.

A pity we didn’t get to defeat another team as a round up for the afternoon but many thanks to Browns Bay for being great hosts.

Glyn’s team.
Another cold wet and windy day of bowls at Browns Bay.  Tough conditions and tough opposition with loses to Manly, Hobsonville and Browns Bay. The tournament finally succumbed to the rain and finished after 3 games.

Roger Potter Team.
Results
D 4 7 7 Birkenhead
L  2  5  14 Manly
W  4  10  7 Hobby

The morning started with an even match and both teams adapting to the conditions with Mairangi leading early and conceding a draw on the last end.  The 2nd game against Manly was a struggle to hold a position and resulted in a loss. Manly went on to achieve runner up in the competition.  The afternoon games were reduced to one of 8 ends given the arrival of the predicted heavy rain.  The team played some well-placed bowls which resulted in a well-deserved win.

The winners were the Wayne Harris skipped team from Orewa, who played extremely good bowls in those conditions.

Report by Alan Daniels and the team captains.