State’s best lawn bowlers gather for inaugural challenge Impressive roll up
A NEW lawn bowls rivalry is set to ignite this weekend as the Suburban Bowls Club hosts the inaugural North versus South Challenge.
Queensland’s finest players including multiple Commonwealth Games and World Championship representatives will battle it out in three- Test series for both men and women. State selectors will be in attendance across the weekend scouting for new talent.
Townsville’s Justin Cribbin will represent North Queensland alongside his brother Ben and he said it was an excellent opportunity to play at a high level on his home green.
“It means a lot, especially being alongside my brother and a few of the other people I know very well,” Cribbin said.
“It really is a good opportunity for a few of us to show what we can do and play against the best in the game.”
Bowls Queensland CEO Brett Wilkie is also skip of one of the South Queensland fours and he said the new challenge was a great way to bring players from state together.
“There’s a lot of rivalry built up already between the north and south and we’ve got a lot of good quality players from all over Queensland,” he said.
“We have district sides championships every year in May and this’ll be another level up from that.
“It’ll give players from all parts of Queensland something to aim to be selected for in the future.”
Both regions expected some fierce competition with intrastate bragging rights up for grabs.
“There’s always a bit of banter in bowls. That’s the best part about it,” Cribbin said.
Wilkie added: “Once we get on the green it’ll be pretty fierce rivalry. We’re all good friends, but we also play hard when we get out there.”
Today’s matches start at 1pm and 5.30pm before the third Test tomorrow at 9.30am at the Suburban Bowls Club. across the