N.Z. has bowls lead

Press, 9 November 1984, Page 44

N.Z. has bowls lead

PA Auckland New Zealand took a 3-1 lead In the first bowls test against Scotland at Onehunga yesterday, with both the visitors’ Commonwealth champions being beaten. lan Dickison survived a strong comeback from Willie Wood to win, 21-18, and Stewart McConnell beat David Gourlay, 21-19, in a see-sawing encounter. Earlier, Peter Bellis accounted for Doug Lambert, 21-17, and the Scottish side's youngest member, Grant

Knox, was its only winner with a 21-11 success over Rowan Brassey. The two Dunedin men, McConnell and Dickison, provided the highlights of the day with their wins. Dickison established a 167 lead over Wood, the Commonwealth singles champion. Then the 46-year-old part-time motor mechanic began one of his famous fightbacks. In the next six ends he scored nine shots to level the score and Dickison began to look shaky under the

pressure the Scotsman was exerting. A couple of tentative run shots at the head to save situations failed. Then he had a full-blooded drive and stopped the flood of points against him. Apart from Gourlay taking an early 4-1 lead over McConnell, there was never more than two shots in the match. Six times during the game the scores were tied. While the Commonwealth pairs champion played a variety of shots, McConnell was content to plug away

with his accurate draw play and the occasional run at the head. Beiliss was ahead most of the way in his game against Lambert, although the Scotsman did lead 16-15 before Beiliss drew away in the closing stages. Brassey never recovered from being 15-1 down to Knox. Although Brassey did not play bad bowls, Knox, the 24-year-old joiner playing his first singles match for Scotland, drew superbly from the first end to win comfortably.