Bruce gives fine display in club singles final

IT was Tayla Bruce’s Day. She gave a classy display to win the women’s singles at the New Zealand Club championships.

Bruce (22), Christchurch teacher trainee, won her second title in the event when she outplayed Wynette McLachlan (Clinton) 2111 at the Taieri Bowling Club yesterday.

The Burnside club bowler won the same title in 2014 and this was her fourth national title and her second this year. She was in the winning four at the open championships in January.

Bruce was unlucky to miss selection for World Bowls last year but on this display she must be a certainty for next year’s Commonwealth Games on the Queensland Sunshine Coast.

She was a talented and determined teenager when she finished runnerup to Helen King (Wellington) at the open singles final at Dunedin three years ago.

She has now developed a maturity and a touch of class with her bowls.

McLachlan, the wily Clinton farmer, won the title in 2011 and was in sizzling form in the semifinal when she outclassed Diane Strawbridge (Kensington, Northland) 212.

The final was tight for the first seven ends, when McLachlan held a slender 64 lead.

But Bruce turned the game on its head on the next end when she ran the jack into the ditch for four shots when she was one down on the head.

She rubbed it in on the next end by drawing three shots to lead 116.

‘‘It was the turning point in the game for me,’’ Bruce said.

‘‘I had been chasing the lead before this. That shot gave me huge confidence for the rest of the game.’’

Bruce was then prepared to attempt the difficult shots.

On the 11th end she was two down on the head when she edged into a tight head to draw the shot with her third bowl and added the bonus shot with her next bowl.

Bruce made three touchers and added the bonus shot on three ends.

In the quarterfinal she beat Trish Croot (Birkenhead, North Harbour) 215 and Sandra Bunt (Riverside, Marlborough) 1813 in the semifinal.

McLachlan beat Kapiti Coast’s Audrey Stevenson 1613 in the quarterfinal. The only other Otago bowler to reach postsection play was Margaret O’Connor (Queenstown), who was beaten 2115 by Strawbridge in the quarterfinals.

Sean O’Neill (Kia Toa, South Canterbury), a Timaru insurance broker, won his second national title when he beat Stephen Love (Johnston Park, Manawatu) 2116 in the men’s final.

O’Neill (44) also won the open fours title at Dunedin in 2007 and has been runnerup in national events on four occasions.

He made a solid start and led 105 after seven ends but then lost his way when Love took six shots to draw level 11all after 11 ends.

He then looked to have the game in his grasp when he led 1512.

But he dropped a four on the 16th end to let Love back and trailed 1516.

‘‘That lapse brassed me off,’’ O’Neill said.

‘‘I tightened my game after that’’

O’Neill scored six shots on the last four ends to win the game. On the final end his first bowl nestled alongside the jack and he then put a block down the green to make it difficult for Love to drive.

O’Neill beat Ian Lewis (Opononi, Far North) 217 in the quarterfinals and Rhys Hakkens (Raumati South, Kapiti Coast) 1410 in the semifinals.

Love beat national open singles champion Dean Elgar (West End, Taranaki) 2112 in the quarterfinals and Chris Richter-Visser (Hillcrest, Waikato) 1710 in the semifinal.

The pairs events will be held at the weekend and the final at Taieri tomorrow afternoon.