Sunday was an incredible day for our Men's Pennant teams looking for places in the semi finals & finals on March 22nd. The Championship 1 team was already assured of a place but all the other teams were still strongly in contention - all that was needed in each case was a win!
The Bissett Shield team had to beat Royal Auckland/Grange at home and comfortable wins in the middle of the order from Rakesh Patel, Tomas Shaw, Matthew Cormack & Steven Oh set us up for a 7-1 win overall. They were followed with closer wins to Nathan Smith, Andrew Meng & Robby Turnbull . They progress to play Titirangi in the semi final at Maungakiekie. The other semi final is between Akarana and Whitford Park.
Although the Championship 1 team had already qualified we were looking to continue the good form & results. With a much-changed team though we slipped to a 3.5-4.5 loss to Royal Auckland/Grange. However other results left us at the top of the table and a semi final against Windross Farm at Titirangi. The other semi-finalists are Whitford Park and Akarana.
Championship 2 only needed a narrow to Titirangi at Titirangi to go through but a much strengthened Titirangi team beat us 1.5-6.5 and we missed out on a finals spot by just a point. They will meet Pakuranga in a play-off for 5th & 6th.
Both Inter Club teams have put in some of the best performances from teams in these grades for years. Inter Club 2 needed a win over Wattle Downs at home and an 8-0 thrashing well and truly secured that. Igor & Alex Ivanov, David Evans, Dave Pedersen, Jason Mar and Grant Harford all had big wins, while John Etzine & Krish Krishna had somewhat closer wins to complete the rout. They play Pakuranga at Akarana in the semi final.
Meanwhile at Maungakiekie the Inter Club 3 team had a very good 5-3 win over the home team to cement 2nd place in the group. Good wins to Cameron Pocock, Mike Hearn, Kailesh Patel & David Annan, plus a closer win to Chris Hanley put them through to a semi-final against Royal Auckland/Grange.
Fantastic effort from all the players - go well in the semi-finals! We are hosting the semi finals and finals of Inter Club 2 on March 22.