Sometimes in sport there can be satisfaction in even a narrow defeat and that was the case with the Takapuna and Browns Bay clubs who represented Bowls North Harbour in the recent national inter-club sevens finals in Christchurch.

Both clubs came desperately close to taking the major honours, with Takapuna’s women’s team finishing just behind Nelson to take the silver medal and Browns Bay just being beaten in the semi-finals to finish in third equal spot.

But for a modicum of luck in a sport where so much depends on that factor it could have been a rare North Harbour double.

In particular, the two singles players in each side, Browns Bay’s Colin Rogan and Takapuna’s Selina Smith, had cause to ponder the might-have-beens.

The eventual winner of the men’s title was Canterbury’s Elmwood club, which in the final accounted for Stoke from Nelson. Yet in qualifying play Browns Bay beat Elmwood, becoming the only club in the entire tournament to do so.

And the crucial player in that result was Rogan, who won his singles clash against Elmwood’s Kelvin Scott. But any chance of Browns Bay making the final went when against Stoke Rogan was well beaten by former world champion, Shannon McIlroy.

For Rogan the irony in that result came when Scott in the final lifted his game and enabled Elmwood to take the title by beating McIlroy.

There was one other consolation for Browns Bay to ease the frustration in coming so agonisingly close to making the final. Its fours line-up of Neil Fisher, John Walker, Lindsay Gilmore and Brian Wilson went through seven games in Christchurch unbeaten, which considering the high standard of players in the tournament was a remarkable feat.    

Equally meritorious were the achievements of Smith and her Takapuna team-mates in the pairs, Lisa Parlane and Anne Dorreen. Selina’s only loss in a long campaign which covered Harbour’s qualifying tournament, the qualifying rounds in Christchurch and then post-section came in the final.

In the critical singles match she lost to Nelson’s Jo Edwards, one of New Zealand’s greatest-ever women’s players, but only narrowly. Takapuna’s manager-coach Graham Dorreen described her performances as “world class”.

Parlane and Anne Dorreen were just as impressive and they, too, dropped only one match, with Anne’s immaculate draw play at lead enabling Lisa to assert her wide repertoire of shots.

They succeeded in the final but like Smith against Edwards the four of Wendy Jensen, Robyne Walker, Adele Ineson and Connie Mathieson also incurred a narrow loss to a Nelson four skipped by another icon of the sport in Val Smith. 

Overall Takapuna had played 44 games for just five losses. So to come so close to national glory was obviously hard to take for the Takapuna ladies, as it was for the Browns Bay men. But as Graham Dorreen points out, any disappointment has to be taken in the context of what was an extremely competitive event. Simply to make post-section play is a feat worth celebrating.

“They did themselves, their clubs and the centre proud,” he said.

He also had no doubt that the national inter-club sevens was the pinnacle of the entire New Zealand bowls calendar.

“There is nothing better than playing with your mates and away from home,” he said, adding that in all his involvement at bowls’ highest levels, in Takapuna’s case he had not known a team spirit that had been more amazing.