Bowlers down to the business end

Some Taranaki bowlers may have glittering Christmas presents delivered before the big day after an action-packed weekend on the greens of the province.

The Clegg’s Funeral Services-sponsored women’s open pairs is down to the final, while the men’s Auto City-sponsored Christmas pairs has just four duos remaining.

Both events will be finalised this coming Saturday, with the women squaring off at Hawera Park and the men at West End.

And among those chasing the honours is Fitzroy’s Rhonda Adams who needs one more crown to collect a bar to her gold star for 10 Taranaki titles.

In the men’s semifinals, Dave Wilson, currently on nine titles, and John Roberts, who sits on 24, are both one point short of significant milestones.

Adams skips Revital Fertilisers Taranaki women’s selector, Vickie Kelly, in the women’s pairs. They will meet last season’s champion-of-champions winners, Val McEldowney and Una Maha (New Plymouth), in the decider.

Underlining the quality of the finalists is that all four players have gold stars, with McEldowney, the 2013 Dominion singles winner, also holding a bar to her star.

In the semifinals on Sunday, McEldowney and Maha defeated Paritutu’s Bridget Fletcher and Cathy Andrews 18-10, while Kelly and Adams accounted for Vogeltown’s Yvonne Hallard and Gale Fache 19-13.

In the men’s Christmas pairs, West End pairs dominated the event on their home green.

Wilson, leading for Dean Elgar, advanced to the semifinals with a 23-14 win over Paritutu’s Don Christensen and Darren Goodin. They will meet clubmates Roberts and Craig De Faria in the last four.

Roberts and De Faria won a ding-dong, extra-end quarterfinal 17-16 over last year’s winners, John and Aidan Zittersteijn (Paritutu).

On the other side of the draw brothers Peter and Bart Robertson (New Plymouth) will play Neville Sole and Steve Alchin (West End).

The Robertsons, nephews of the 1984 Dominion pairs winner Pat, hail from Helensville. Peter has been in New Plymouth for the previous two seasons, and while Bart has yet to decide where his final destination will be, he is a highly competent competitor. A North Harbour gold star holder, he has represented that province for a number of years.

In the last eight, they beat West End’s Vini Purcell and Steve Walker 20-15.

In the remaining quarterfinal, Sole and Alchin held off Ian Andrews and Stefan McCartain (Paritutu) 16-15. Alchin, who usually leads, turned a top-shelf skipping performance during post-section and led McCartain by three shots playing the final end. McCartain drew two but his last delivery just rolled beyond the count.