Blackjacks in good early form
Blackjacks Jo Edwards and Angela Boyd scored a moraleboosting win over Australia to go through unbeaten on the opening day of the World Bowls women’s pairs championships in Christchurch.
New Zealand made a flying start in the opening round of section play winning all 12 games across four disciplines yesterday.
Edwards and Boyd opened their account with a thumping 28-9 win over Cyprus and then beat the Philippines’ Ainie Knight and Ascuncion Bruce, 19-14.
But it was their commanding 24-7 win over Australia’s Karen Murphy and Kelsey Cottrell that caught the eye.
Murphy successfully defended her singles title last Sunday while Cottrell, a gold medallist with the Australian four on Saturday, is defending her pairs title.
The victory was just the fillip the Blackjacks needed after four bronze medals in the first week.
Edwards, at skip, is a twotime former world pairs champion but her lead Boyd, a bronze medallist in the fours last week, is attending her first World Bowls tournament.
Nelson’s Shannon McIlroy was among three men in his section to win their first three singles matches.
The 29-year-old had to work hard to win his opening singles match 21-17 against Hong Kong China’s Tony Cheung, but was much more convincing in the afternoon round, downing Brunei’s Abd Rahman HJ Omar, 21-10 before a hard-fought 21-17 win over Cyprus’ Loukas Paraskeva.
The Kiwi men’s four of Mike Nagy Mike Kernaghan, Blake Signal and skip Ali Forsyth were comfortable 26-10 victors over their Israel counterparts and backed up with a good 13-9 win over a Canadian team skipped by Steve McKerihen before routing Fiji 25-5.
New Zealand, Scotland – skipped by Alex Marshall, widely regarded as the top male bowler in the world – and South Africa were 3-0 in section one.
England, skipped by Sam Tolchard, and Australia, helmed by Mark Casey, had three wins in section two and Ireland were also unbeaten after two victories and a 17-17 draw with Jersey.
Edwards and Boyd were the only team with three wins in their pairs section, while Wales, Scotland and South Africa had perfect 3-0 records in the other group.
Katelyn Inch, Kirsten Edwards and skip Val Smith made it a memorable morning for New Zealand accounted for Namibia 21-11 in the women’s triples. They later edged out Hong Kong China 17-15 and convincingly beat China, 26-10.
Malaysia, England and New Zealand were unbeaten in their section with Australia the sole team in the other group to pick up three wins.
The Australian squad, who won three out of four golds during the opening week of the tournament, also started strongly picking up eight wins in the first two rounds with the women’s pair’s loss to New Zealand their only reverse for the day.
England began brightly, gaining four wins from four morning matches. Their men’s four beat Malaysia 19-12 in round two and the women’s triple, skipped by Wendy King, thrashed Norfolk Island 23-8, but triples gold medallist Jamie Walker lost his second round singles match to Ireland’s Gary Kelly and the women’s pair, Ellen Parker and Sophie Tolchard, were upset 17-13 by Singapore’s Jane Low and Josephine Lim.
Canada’s Ryan Bester gained revenge on Scotland’s Darren Burnett in the men’s singles, winning 21-8.
Bester lost to Burnett in the 2014 Commonwealth Games gold medal singles final.
Burnett bounced back in round two with a 21-5 win over Macao’s sole World Bowls entrant Johnny Ng while Bester notched his second win, beating Japan’s Australian-based ace Kenta Hasebe 21-19 before picking up a third, 21-17 over Jersey.
Australia’s Aron Sherriff, a triples silver medallist, also had three wins in Bester’s section.
Malaysia’s Mohammad Fairus Abd Jabal and Wales’ Jonathon Tomlinson joined McIlroy on 3-0 in section two.
The top three qualify from each group for post-section play after the nine-match round robin ends tomorrow.