More pain for Sloan team

Our Sloan Trophy team has suffered its second narrow loss to remain rooted to the bottom of the table.

Despite good wins by our No 1 Peter Green and No 6 Ian Hanford, we went down to Takaka at Golden Downs on Sunday by 6.5 to 2.5 points.

Our juniors got us off to a solid start, with Ian rediscovering form to post a comfortable 5/4 win and Neil McLaren coming back from two down with two to play to square his match.

However, both intermediates were on the wrong end of close tussles. Geoff Halkett had short game problems to lose 2/1 while Aaron Kotua couldn’t peg back a one-hole deficit at the turn to succumb 1 down.

With the result resting on our seniors, Peter Green led two up at the turn with a birdie and a run of pars before coasting to a 4/3 win on the back of a tidy 77 off the stick.

Unfortunately, No 2 Keri Kotua couldn’t emulate his effort, losing two late holes after being all square after nine to fall 2/1.

That meant that we remain last with five points after three rounds, which includes a bye.

In other results, Motueka cemented its lead with a 7-2 victory over Nelson, Greenacres got the better of Murchison 7.5-1.5 and Totaradale overcame Tasman 7-2.

So after three rounds the points table is as follows: Motueka 22, Greenacres 18, Totaradale 17.5, Tasman 10.5, Takaka 9.5, Nelson and Murchison 9, Golden Downs 8.5, Waahi Taakaro 5.

The next round is at Totaradale on May 22 when we play Nelson.