Bowlers gain gold star status

West End’s Jordan Linn and Steve Walker became the latest bowlers to attain gold star status, for winning five Taranaki titles, when they claimed the men’s centre fours at Ha¯wera Park on Saturday.

In conjunction with Dave Wilson and skip Craig De Faria, the West Enders took the honours 19-14 over a Tower team headed by Bruce Phillips in the final.

Linn and Walker created history with the win, becoming the first players to achieve their gold stars entirely together, having also won all their titles in the same teams. Previously, the duo won the champion-of-champions pairs (2014), the centre fours (2015) and the champion-ofchampions fours (2017) – both with Wilson and De Faria – plus the Christmas pairs last December.

But halfway through the final of the South Taranaki Clubsponsored event, it appeared that Linn and Walker would have to wait another day for their moment of glory.

Phillips and his team of Mark Kuklinski, John Roberts and Scott Roberts held the upper hand

9-5 after nine of the 18 ends. But counts of four on both the

10th and 15th ends, the latter after two accurate drives from De Faria, gave the West End side the advantage they needed in the blustery, cool conditions.

In the semifinals, De Faria ran away 18-5 over Opunake’s Bob Commane, Kevin Ratahi, Paddy Deegan and Rodney Woods, while Phillips accounted for Mike Wesley, Bill Foley, Kelly Hill and Grayson McEldowney (New Plymouth) 23-12.

Linn, Walker and De Faria have been named in the Revital Fertilisers Taranaki senior men’s representative side for the Arnott Shield fixture in Wanganui on November 17.

The 10-man squad, the first picked by new selectors Russell Hardy and Allan Batley, includes two new faces at this level – Paritutu’s Aidan Zittersteijn and Tower’s Brendan Anderson. Both newcomers will lead in pairs – Anderson for Gerry O’Sullivan and Zittersteijn for Walker. The singles spots will be handled by Dean Elgar and De Faria. Darren Goodin skips a four of Linn, Adam Collins and Scott Roberts.

Meanwhile, women’s selector Vickie Kelly’s side to compete against Wanganui, Manawatu and Wairarapa, also in Wanganui on November 17, contains just two changes from the side that was beaten by Kapiti last month. With Rhonda Adams playing in Australia, Ann Duggan will lead a pair for Maree Gadsby. The other addition is Chris Commane, who will handle the second solo spot, alongside Sue Winter. The second pair of Sue Edwards and Shar Healey, and the four of Val McEldowney, Bev Robinson, Susan Cottam and Cathy Andrews, remain unchanged.