Canty bowlers miss nationals

Press, 19 December 1986, Page 26

Canty bowlers miss nationals

By

KEVIN McMENAMIN

With 68 entries, Canterbury will have a reasonably strong numerical representation at the Rothmans national bowls championships which start in Wellington on Sunday week. Very few of them, however, are top bowlers, and no more .than 10 could realistically be rated as possible title winners.

In the fours there are only nine teams from Canterbury, although there are teams from clubs in other centres which include one or more Canterbury bowlers. On paper, Canterbury’s best hope will probably be the team which Bruce McNish is skipping. With him McNish has his Spreydon club-mates, Bill McDonald and Ray Hunt, plus Bernie Johns, of Linwood.

It was at Wellington four years ago that McNish, then with the Milton club, won the fours, and Hunt was one of his partners.

Since then McNish has not done a lot, but he is still a very able bowler and with three top draw players in front of him he might again find Wellington a rewarding venue.

The other four which could represent Canterbury with distinction is

the proven Ellesmere line-up of Colin Lowery, Morris Nairn, Leon Jones and Bob Patterson. This team, with Lowery returning after an absence of three seasons, has an outstanding record for consistency at national championships and is unlikely to be weakened by the promotion of Patterson to skip and Nairn going to second. It was in Wellington four years ago that Jones and Patterson were beaten in the filial of the pairs and they will be together again, hoping to go one better. Johns and McDonald form a very useful pair, while Hunt and McNish also have possibilities in this event.

The same players, plus the Papanui pair, Jack Dale and Brian McGowan, can be expected to do reasonably well in the singles, although it is hard to see the winner of this title coming from Canterbury. All the big names of New Zealand bowls, such as Peter Beiliss, Phil Skoglund and lan Dickison, will be lining up, but once again the man all

eyes will be on, especially in the fours, is the remarkable Nick Unkovich. Unkovich, with various

teams, has won the fours six times in the last eight years, completing a hattrick in Christchurch last summer. He has the same Rawhiti team again as he had then, and there will be a special incentive for Unkovich this year. With nine national titles, eight of them in fours, Unkovich is already the most successful bowler in the history of the championships. One more would make him the first to earn an N.Z.B.A. double gold star. It has been said for a number of years that Unkovich’s golden run must be coming to an end. But he keeps beating the odds

and Wellington has been a happy hunting ground for him, having won three fours titles, and one singles title, on the city’s greens.