Champion four splitting up—if only temporarily

Press, 31 December 1980, Page 14

Champion four splitting up—if only temporarily

By

KEVIN McMENAMIN

There is news both good and bad fdr Christchurch bowlers who intend contesting the local Easter fours tournament towards the end of this summer.

The bad news ■is that Ken Watson, Sonny Calder, Wally Wilkinson and Morgan Moffat, the Linwood quartet who won the last Easter and followed it with a conclusive victory in last week’s Christmas fours, all expect to be playing again. The good news, however, is that they will not be playing together.

' While there is no obvious disharmony among the four, a matter of principle has led to what is likely to be only a temporary breaking up of a team which must rank as ond of the strongest, if not the strongest, club fours ever to have competed in Christchurch. Wilkinson . was not happy when just a few days before the start of the Christmas fours two weeks ago Moffat told his partners that, because of a Saturday morning work commitment, he would not be able to play in the first two of the nine section rounds. ’As a result a substitute, Bernie Timms, was employed for these two games. It is Wilkinson’s belief ’hat when a team enters a ’numament its members should be secure in the knowledge that they are going , to be together throughout it. “It was just our good fortune that we were able to pick up a substitute as able as Bernie Timms at short notice,” he said. However, despite the fact that the team managed well enough without

Moffat, Wilkinson still feels that a basic tenet of the team game was broken

and it is his fear of a similar occurrence at Easter, when the tournament will take in two Saturdays, that has prompted him to break with Moffat and enter his own team.

In reaching this decision, Wilkinson levels no criticism at Moffat, whom he says is doing the right and proper thing in putting his work ahead of

bowls. “He is a young man with a young family and he has years of bowls ahead of him; my situation is a little different.” Wilkinson made his decision to enter his own team at Easter before the Christmas fours ended on Sunday and he held firm even after Moffat said that he was confident that he would be free to play in the Easter event, which is, in fact, true to its name of being a pre-Eas-ter tournament. It was agreed that-Wat-son and Calder would remain with Moffat and that Wilkinson would build a new team, which already has one member — Warren Fitchett, the beaten skin in Sunday’s final and Wilkinson’s pairs partner at Linwood. The break-up, however, „ is likely to be onlv temporary, as both Moffat and Wilkinson are keen to resume their association

next summer when the Dominion tournament will be held in Christchurch.

If the team does get together again for the national championship it will contain just one change — Wilkinson for Bryan Smith — from the combination which Moffat

skipped to victory at the last Christchurch tournament three years ago. It would have to be a strong contender. The team already has an

outstanding record, both locally and nationally, and is probably’ better balanced than many of the fours that have represented New Zealand in recent years. With Wilkinson skipping and Timms coming in for the absent Moffat, it was the runner-up at the Dominion tournament in Dunedin last summer and in three outings at the local level it has played 35 games for just two losses. The first was when it was eliminated in the quarter-finals of the Christmas fours last year and there was another defeat, after the team had qualified, in the section rounds of the Easter last season. But rarely has a four so dominated the local scene. The outcome of the latest Christmas tournament was just about a foregone conclusion even before th*

first bowl was played. The team won all its nine section games in convincing style and found the going no harder in post-section play.

As so often happens when teams from the same club contest a final, the game was played in a rather relaxed atmosphere, although the professional approach of Moffat’s four was always evident. Moffat acknowledged later that it was hard to inject any “grudge” into a game in which the opponents were all good friends.. However, It was probably more difficult for Fitchett, a skip of veiy little experience, and his team. They were together for the first time and must have known the odds were heavily stacked against them. Because of his work, Moffat has not been playing a lot of bowls this summer, but, if anything, he seems to be playing better this season than he did when he had a lot of top competition last summer. He has reverted to the big, 5-l/Bin bowls that he replaced with a smaller set last season and they appear to have brought a fresh confidence to his game. Wilkinson questions whether he has yet to play as well at third for Moffat as he has in other teams and in other positions. Part of his difficulty might be that Moffat, as with most bowlers who learnt the game in Britain, likes to play to bowls rather than always to the jack. However, they share the common philosophy of an aggressive game and Willaneoa MOMiaa m eu>

standing driver, although with draw players as good as Watson and Calder in front of them, Wilkinson and Moffat are seldom put under heavy pressure. Moffat noted after Sunday’s final that not once in the whole tournament was he “left dn the cart.” He said, also, that a prime reason for the team having such a good run was, he felt, the pressure that it was able to apply through its front pair. It is probably true to say that this ability to apply pressure and to continue applying it is as important as superior bowling skills in making this team something out of the ordinary’. It is, perhaps, debatable whether it is in the best interests of the Linwood club and bowls generally in Canterbury for this team to remain intact and win just about everything it enters.

This, of course, is for the four players themselves to decide, but so long as they do stay together, they seem certain to set standards that will not be easily beaten. Already they hive set one in winning the Easter and the Christmas tournaments in the same year.