Keen to take mallet to England

ANDREW BOARD/Nelson Mail

HOOPLA: Nelson croquet player Greg Bryant has been selected for the MacRobertson Shield team to play in Britain next month.

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A new mallet and plenty of practice has propelled Nelson croquet player Greg Bryant into the New Zealand "world cup" team, heading to Britain next month.

Bryant was selected for the MacRobertson Shield team earlier this year and is now putting in three hours of practice a day to ready himself for the tournament, the pinnacle of international teams croquet.

Bryant, a member of the Richmond club, has played in four MacRobertson Shield teams, an event held every four years among the sport's top four countries – Britain, Australia, United States and New Zealand.

"I'm very, very excited," he said. "I've not contested a MacRob in Great Britain before and given the history of the sport in that country and that they are the current holders it makes it very special."

The six-person New Zealand team is funded by Sparc and, for the first time since 1969, has a woman in the team. Jenny Clarke is Bryant's doubles partner and, curiously enough, is the wife of world, and Great Britain No 1, Chris Clarke.

New Zealand was the last country, other than Britain, to win the competition when it did so in 1986, and is ranked fourth in the world, a placing Bryant is hoping to help improve this year.

"We play Australia first up and I've never lost a trans-Tasman series to them, so hopefully we can win that and have a good amount of confidence when we play the Brits second," he said.

While Bryant has won several national titles and represented New Zealand for close to two decades he said the highlight of his career is any time he plays in the MacRobertson Shield and he is more confident this year of achieving a strong result than any other.

"We are very confident as a team and personally I'm very happy with my form at the moment. I've just switched mallets for the first time in my career and I'm finding the benefits of that just extraordinary. I'm vastly improved and really excited by that. Playing in this event is about as good as it gets," he said.

The competition starts in early August with New Zealand being the next country to host it in 2014.

- © Fairfax NZ News