Silver a Noble effort for busy bowler
Manawatu’s Mark Noble is in the middle of a hectic couple of weeks of bowling on the Gold Coast.
Noble was last week bowling for New Zealand at the Trans-tasman competition and the eight nations tournament, and now is into two weeks of the Australian Open.
In the Trans-tasman event, the New Zealand para team of Noble, skip Graham Skellern and lead Carolyn Crawford had four wins, four losses and a draw.
Then in the eight nations, against England, Wales, Malaysia, two Australian teams and two Scottish teams, the New Zealand triple won a silver medal.
Noble skipped the triple this time and Crawford was the lead.
New Zealand topped the qualifying, which included a 14-10 win over Australia, but Australia reversed the result in the final and won 20-13, so Noble and the team got silver.
When the Australian Open started, Noble started the open singles on Sunday and qualified for the next round on Tuesday.
The fours start on Thursday where he will be playing with regular sparring partner Barry Wynks from Manawatu, as well as Ray Webster (Dunedin) and Russell Botting (Timaru). Wynks and Noble will team up in the pairs too. Para events are next week.
Manawatu bowling clubs may not have to go to the expenditure of trekking to the national interclub finals next season.
Bowls New Zealand have changed the rules for next summer, so interclub and national club finals have gone back to regional qualifying tournaments, which will be in the second half of the season.
Clubs who win their centre competitions will go to regional finals to see who will qualify to go to the national finals, rather than clubs from every centre going to the national finals.
It is a cost-cutting measure because it was believed that it costs some clubs $10,000 to get to the events. In the Central region is Wellington, Wairarapa, Kapiti Coast, Manawatu, Hawke’s Bay, Gisborne, Wanganui and Taranaki
They may split the regional finals into two zones, where Manawatu, Wairarapa, Hawke’s Bay and East Coast would play in Hawke’s Bay, and Wellington, Kapiti Coast, Wanganui and Taranaki would play in Wanganui.
The winner of each zone will go to the national finals, but if the regional finals isn’t split in two zones, then the top two teams will qualify.
Next season’s national intercentre championships are at Christchurch. The days of Palmerston North hosting major events like the national intercentre or interclub championships are likely gone because of the cost of flying to Palmerston North and because too much infrastructure is required these days.
Experienced sports administrator Mark Cameron is the new Bowls New Zealand chief executive following the retirement of long-time boss Kerry Clark, who was in the job for 20 years.
Cameron has been chief executive for Auckland Cricket and the Northern Mystics and general manager for New Zealand Basketball League.
He is on the North stars netball team board and is the chairman of Hearing Dogs New Zealand.