Welcome to the website of Pétanque Wellington. On these pages you will find information regarding the game of Pétanque, also known as Boules or French Bowls, within the lower North Island of New Zealand.
Please take some time to browse through the site and we welcome your feedback (webmaster@petanque.org.nz).
Upper Hutt Pétanque Club hosted the Champion of Champion Singles tournament on Sunday 23rd March. Seven teams entered from clubs in the Wellington region.
Seven rounds of games were played with each team sitting out for one round, four games before lunch and three after.
The winners were in doubt until the last game was finished, a nail biter. However, Upper Hutt (Derek Worsley) prevailed with six wins, followed by Naenae (Michael Rocks), also with six wins, followed by Otaki (Shirley MacDonald) with three wins.
The differential did not contribute to the ranking. Being a Round Robin format meant that the winner is dictated simply by who beat whom when they played each other.
Winners Moises Burgos and Brian Smith with Claire Bradburn
Seven clubs were represented in the Champion of Champions Doubles at the Upper Hutt Pétanque club on Saturday 22nd March.
The teams played against each other in a Round Robin tournament format, at the end of which Upper Hutt (Moises Burgos and Brian Smith) took the trophy with six wins, followed by Silverstream (Braydin Harawira and Teagan Harawira) with four wins, followed by Horowhenua (Gavin Jones and Marie Jones), also with four wins.
Silverstream were placed in front of Horowhenua since they beat them when they played each other. In this case the differential scores were not required to differentiate winners.
The Upper Hutt Swiss Doubles took place on 16th March at Maidstone Park. Eighteen teams took part from all over the Wellington region with a contingent of helpers for the kitchen, raffle, scoring, setup and teardown.
The format was the traditional five round Swiss.
Moises Burgos (Upper Hutt) and Debby Butler (Kapiti) went through undefeated to claim first place. They won it last year too. Tony and Kathy Gatford (Kapiti) were runners-up, and Graeme Morris (Masterton) and Shirley MacDonald (Otaki) were third.
The entry form for the Otaki Easter Mêlée(19 April 2025) is now available.
Jacques Cochonnet Trophy Challenge
10 March 2025
Upper Hutt's tenth defence was away against Manawatu on Sunday, 9th March 2025.
The teams gathered at Manawatu around 10am and play started at 10:40, with two games played before a superb lunch laid on by Manawatu.
Upper Hutt won the Singles and Doubles from the 1st round, then all three games in the 2nd round, so had in fact retained the trophy by lunch break.
Upper Hutt then went on to win all three games after lunch, making the win 8-1 to Upper Hutt. A great day of semi-social play was had by all.
Thirteen teams played in the Masterton Open Triples over the weekend of 22nd and 23rd February 2025.
Day one consisted of five rounds of Swiss Draw. On Sunday the top eight teams were placed into two pools of four to contest the championship and
plate. The remaining five teams played a five team Round Robin for the bowl.
Michelle Maxwell, Debby Butler and Junior Pulietu were placed first at the end of Day One and went on to win the championship.
Eighteen teams competed in the 2025 Regional Triples Tournament held in lovely hot weather at Otaki Pétanque Club.
The Trophy Winners were Michelle Maxwell, Claire Wilson and Christine
Strichen who beat Brian Smith, Moises Burgos and Lee Tafford 8/7.
Fourteen teams took part in the WPA Women's Triples hosted by Silverstream. The format was four random games followed by elimination games.
The final of the Trophy was played between Claire Wilson, Marie Jones and Christine Strichen and Annick LeGuen, Yvonne Futcher and Margaret Pomana.
In a hard fought battle, the winners were Claire, Marie and Christine.
Plate winners were Adrienne Gwerder, Ngaire Eriksen and Christine Daykin.
Bowl winners were Lorraine Gray, Petrina Anderson and Johnelle Harawira.
The 2025 Hospice Charity Tournament was a great success and the Upper Hutt Petanque Club did a wonderful job getting prizes and sponsors for the day. The total raised was over $9,300.00 for the Te Omanga Hospice.
I especially want to thank Paul Bonsey and Michelle Maxwell for stepping up when I couldn't be there for the day.
Now that the 2025 tournament has been completed we look towards the 2026 tournament and I invite clubs in the Wellington region to send me an expression of interest to host the next event. Any clubs interested please email me at graememorris@xtra.co.nz
The video of the 2024 Regional Senior Doubles final between Tony Gatford/Kevin McFadgen (Kapiti) and Derek Worsley/Brian Smith (Upper Hutt) is now on the Wellington Pétanque YouTube channel.
Inter-club Competition
26 January 2025
Kapiti Pétanque Club - Winners of the 2025 Interclub Competition
The WPA Interclub was held on Saturday, 25 January 2025 at Horowhenua Pétanque Club in extremely hot conditions.
Eight clubs entered out of a possible 10. Seven clubs took up the option of eight players and one club had seven players.
There were six rounds of 50 minutes + 1 end of singles, doubles and triples. If the score was tied points were shared. There were five drawn games on the day.
The only slight issue was two clubs that did not have full club uniforms but hopefully this has been sorted.
Slight issue with the drawn points but no change to placings.
Thirty two teams from all over the country took part in the Parkwood Kapiti Open Doubles at the weekend. Each team played five randomly drawn games on Day One with three teams winning all five games.
On Day Two the top sixteen played in four pools for the Trophy and Trophy Consolation. The remaining sixteen played in four pools for the Plate and Bowl.
The trophy was won by Andre Noel and Keelan Noel (Rotorua Academy) who beat John Targett (Christchurch) and Ian Baker (Herne Bay).
Eleven teams took part in the Khandallah Mixed Doubles at the weekend. The format was a four round Snake (Random) draw followed by a single playoff to determine the team's prize.
Each round the team that had the Bye played against tournament director Michael Rocks. To make things interesting they drew a number to determine how many boules Michael played with. Surprisingly, each round it was 4 Boules with Michael winning 2 and losing 3 games.
The final saw the 2022 champions Mary and Brian play against Ingrid and Graham from the HBLTS (Napier). In a tight game, Mary and Brian won 13-12.
On a cold start to a summer's day Otaki welcomed 55 players to their New Year Mêlée on Saturday the 4th January. Six players shared which made an even draw.
The winner was Alan Frost with five wins. In second place was Carol Knapp with four wins.
Sadly Louise Sligo from Wanganui East Pétanque Club passed away over the Christmas period.
Louise was a founding member of the Silverstream Pétanque Club until she moved to Wanganui. She was also a past WPA secretary.
Her funeral will be held on Sunday the 5th January at 2pm at Club Metro in Wanganui.
After the service there will be afternoon tea and a chance to raise a glass to Louise.
A notice will be in the paper this week.
Flo (Shirley Madgwick)
Wanganui East Pétanque Club President
Kath Alison
23 December 2024
It is with sadness that I inform Wellington clubs that Kath Alison passed away last Thursday.
Many players within and outside the Wellington region would have played against Kath and
probably came off the piste on the losing side.
Kath was the Kapiti clubs last surviving Life Member with this honour bestowed on her in
2015.
Kath was also a past President of the Kapiti Club from 2003-2005 and from 2012-2014 and
served for many years on the Clubs Committee.
Kath, along with husband Kaye, formed a very highly competitive doubles combination that
saw them win the WPA Senior Doubles in the 2007/08 season and provided extremely stiff
opposition for anyone who played against them.
The highlight of Kath’s career was representing New Zealand in the Trans-Tasman clash
with Australia in 2008. Kath also represented Wellington in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2010.
Kath, along with other senior Kapiti players, also provided training/coaching for new club
members.
Kath’s funeral is a private family only service.
On behalf of the Wellington Clubs and its members, I would like to pass on my condolences
to Kaye and family, and we are thinking of you all in this difficult time.
Kevin McFadgen
President
WPA Open Triples Championship
9 December 2024
Twenty teams took part in the WPA Open Triples on Saturday the 7th of December at Otaki.
Winners of the trophy were Moises Burgos, Brian Smith and Lee Tafford. Runners up were Ngaire Eriksen, Christine Daykin and Alan Taylor.
Upper Hutt's ninth defence was away against Kapiti on Sunday, 1st December 2024.
Upper Hutt won again with an overall score of 6-3. Kapiti's triples team put up a good fight winning two of their three games. However Upper Hutt won three singles and two doubles.
