Close-fought contests for bowlers

Despite finishing third over-all at last weekend's triangular tournament in Wellington, Marlborough senior men's bowls selector Kingsley Schroder was pleased enough with his charges' performances.

Canterbury and Wellington finished on top with 12 points, followed by Marlborough with eight and Auckland four.

The final was a close-fought contest. A crucial match was the singles clash between Marlborough's Kelvin Scott and Darren Redwing from Canterbury. The scores were tied 20-20 playing the last end and Scott was holding shot. However, with his last bowl he nudged Redwing's bowl closer to the jack and the Cantabrian won by a shot.

The standout combination for Marlborough was the Andre Smith-skipped four of Steven Gallop, Sanjhe Prasad and Lloyd Gallop. They defeated Grant Goodwin's Auckland team 31-19, picking up a seven on one end when trailing 4-7 and from there they never looked back.

Marlborough led Canterbury early, eventually going down 16-22, but in their final match bounced back to beat the previously unbeaten Wellington 11-10, Rob Ashton moving the jack with his last bowl to give Smith victory.

Scott lost his first-up singles to Wellington's Kevin Rice 16-21, but stormed back to comfortably account for Auckland's Danny Delany 21-7.

Marlborough's pair of lead Warren Brown and New Zealand representative Shayne Sincock struggled early against Canterbury's Glen McDonald and Steve Ditfort but fought back to get within three shots before losing 13-18. A similar scenario in the second match saw them lose 13-17 to Wellington's Roger Glendenning and skip Ben King, but in their final match against Auckland's Barclay Lee and Kevin Dixon, they showed their true quality to win 23-10.

Summing up his team's over-all performance, selector Schroder said it was "good and bad".

"We just didn't get started in a couple of games early enough. We were only a bowl or two short of being there. Crucial games against Canterbury we lost narrowly."

Schroder said he was quietly confident heading into the season's main goal, the inter-zone tournament against Canterbury, Nelson, West Coast and Buller at Westport in two weeks.

"That's the one we really want to win."

He singled out Sanjhe Prasad, playing at two in Smith's four, as Marlborough's standout individual player last weekend at the Naenae greens.

Marlborough's women also played well in Wellington last weekend, but were still beaten into fourth place, up against Canterbury, Wellington and Auckland.

Jan Gallop, playing singles, began slowly with a first-up loss to Wellington's Leigh Griffin 4-21.

However she hit back strongly to beat Canterbury's Jan Shirley 21-16 and Auckland's Jill Fraser 21-13. The pair, skipped by Noeline Hood with Glenda Bishop lead, were always playing catch-up in their three games, their closest effort coming against Auckland's Karen de Jongh, which they lost 14-17.

The Marlborough four of skip Karen Day, Honey Reuben, Colleen Robbins and Josephine Romano could easily have finished with three wins, but one poor end each game proved costly.

They dropped five shots on one end against Canterbury when leading, to lose 17-20, then went down in another close contest 10-14 to Auckland.

In their last match against Wellington's Lui Hare, the two teams fought out a great 10-10 draw.

Marlborough coach Kaki Johnstone was far from despondent despite the lack of wins.

"They played their hearts out and the scores showed how much work we put in."

- The Marlborough Express