Northland battle hard

The promising line-up fought hard all week in the matchplay competition, but were unlucky in a number of their battles, losing matches narrowly to place sixth overall - two places down on last year.

Proud team manager Jack Winwood said it was not a bad tournament, but it was not great either.

"We started slowly and then finished with a hiss and a roar," Winwood said. On Tuesday, day one of the tournament, Northland came up against Manawatu/Wanganui and Waikato - who eventually ended up playing in yesterday's final.

"They were both very tough teams and both teams beat us putting us on the back foot on day one," he said.

Day two saw Northland playing North Harbour and Bay of Plenty - who were also very competitive, and both teams defeated Northland 6-2. Winwood said his team were unfortunate to lose both of these matches.

Northland had their chances but did not capitalise when they faced Auckland, on Thursday morning.

Two matches went down to the 18th hole but Northland lost both. If they had won both, they would have won the match. Instead Auckland claimed the 5-3 victory.

"By now the boys were feeling brassed off they were coming close to getting a win but could not quite get there, and they performed really well that afternoon against Hawkes Bay beating them 5-3," Winwood said.

Northland backed their win up with a convincing 7- win over Poverty Bay yesterday morning.

Whangarei Golf Club's Kadin Neho was outstanding during the tournament, suffering only one loss during the tournament. Neho and team mate Luke Brown, who won the individual honours at the New Zealand Secondary Schools Teams Tournament recently, now head to Auckland for a training camp at Srixon New Zealand Golf Junior Academy.

Rookies Ethan O'Shea and Braden Keown were also solid performers, nailing a couple of wins, while making a debut at this tournament.

"Overall the tournament went very well - the way Cambridge Golf Club looked after us was second to none, but we could have done better - if we had the rub of the green. The boys all performed well and fought hard."

Team members Sean Masters, Thomas Neylon, Chase McKeown and Kevin Kruse now head to Waitomo Golf Course to contest this weekend's Northern Region Quadrangular Tournament with the Northland senior men's team.