High stakes at bowls nationals in Dunedin
Commonwealth Games selections are up for grabs when the New Zealand bowls championship gets underway in Dunedin on December 29.
The nationals is the seventh and final event on the list of competitions being used by selectors Sharon Sims and Peter Belliss to determine who the five men and five women will be for April’s event on the Gold Coast.
New Zealand’s leading female players have responded with all eight national squad members attending the championships. However, only four men of the seven in the men’s squad are taking part.
The biggest feature of the teams entered is the joining together, for the first time, of New Zealand’s two most dominant men’s skips from the past 20-odd years, Ali Forsyth and Gary Lawson.
Lawson defeated Forsyth in last season’s pairs final in New Plymouth, but will take the lead berth this time, with Forsyth skipping the duo.
In the fours they are joined by world singles champion, Shannon McIlroy, and the 1999 national singles winner, Justin Goodwin.
Their strongest opposition is likely to come from Games hopefuls Michael Kernaghan and Tony Grantham, who team up with NZ development player Rory Soden and Ryan Burnett, a Scotsman making big strides on the Gold Coast, and Belliss’ quartet which is similar to the one victorious last season.
Lance Tasker and Richard Girvan return with Belliss again and they are joined this time by twotime Newcastle district singles winner, Michael Beesley.
The men start with singles on Friday, with defending champion Dean Elgar in the field of 240.
National squad members Paul Girdler, Michael Nagy and Blake Signal are all bypassing Dunedin.
Dream teams don’t always work, but they did for the all-NZ side of Tayla Bruce, Kirsten Edwards, Val Smith and Jo Edwards 12 months ago when they took the women’s fours. They will be reunited in Dunedin.
The women commence with pairs, where 2008 world champions Smith and Edwards face the defending titleholders Ashleigh Jeffcoat and Dale Rayner first up. Remarkably, Smith and Rayner also square off in the opening game of singles on December 31.
Other likely pairs include twotime champions sisters Angela and Mandy Boyd, Serena Matthews and Sandra Keith, and reigning singles champion Selina Goddard, who leads for Amy McIlroy.
Bruce and Katelyn Inch, both squad members, also form a likely pair, although they have a tough qualifying draw. Section play ends on January 2, then post section ahead of the finals of all disciplines at Taieri on January 6-8.