Bowling On 15^th Jan 2013

Manawatu Bowling Centre will run a Men's Open Triples this coming weekend but the folly of running such an event against the Taranaki Open has been exposed with a very disappointing entry.

Only 16 teams have entered and this includes two entries from other Centres. The answer should be obvious that when 64 Manawatu men's bowlers will be playing in the Taranaki Open from Monday they won't be entering a tournament at home. That Manawatu tournament requires them to be available on the Sunday - the day they need to travel. If a bit of thought was put into it section play could have been played on the Saturday and post section at a later date. That way many of the Taranaki travellers would have entered to get a good workout before their tournament.

This poor scheduling follows hard on the decision to run an any gender triples against the Nationals at New Year which attracted only 14 teams. Palmerston North and Northern would normally provide the bulk of entries to such an event but there are only two from each while Johnston Park provides four and Terrace also has two entries. I would be surprised if the tournament winners do not come from the teams skipped by Pat Horgan, Brian Looker, Chris Barrett and Paul Tregoweth. Horgan has Ross Ellery and Graeme Cooley in front of him who all performed well at the Nationals as did Tregoweth's front of Shane Rogers and Grant Simms. Looker won the event last season with Scruff Anderson and Clayton Simpson who are all back and Barrett has Steve Toms and the promising Dean Gilsnan playing for him.

Some quality there but a soft centre title on offer for some team.

• Hokowhitu ran their very popular mixed classic last week complete with a birthday cake to celebrate the 21st running of the event. A capacity field of 96 (24 fours) competed and the team dubbed the dream team - Kevin Suisted, Janeen Noble, Mere Fryer and Shane Rogers won first prize and the qualifying prize as well.

• Johnston Park ran a Pre Taranaki Fours tournament last weekend and attracted 56 players. Apart from a lot of good banter players loved the 25 end format and it re-affirms that fours is still a most popular game with competitive players.

• Two teams from the Manawatu that should be very competitive in Taranaki are those skipped by Barry Wynks (Takaro) and Palmerston North's Brian Little who still hopes to improve on his runners-up position from two years ago. The same players in the form of the Henn brothers Brian and Ron will join him along with Masterton's Ian Monahan. Wynks will have his regular team mate Terry Curtis with him but the other players from his original side will be missing. Lawrie Gordon was to lead until his premature passing and Terry Rossiter has also been unwell of late. Incidentally Wynks and Curtis won the Takaro pairs final at the weekend, an event that was originally to see Gordon as Wynks partner. Gary Ruane from Wellington and Mark Noble give Wynks four a real sound look.

Teams skipped by Warren Hausman, Craig Gush, Brian Schischka, Keith Walker, Jim Munn, Stephen Love and Don Sones will all have good chances of qualifying and as we all know anything can happen from there.

Good Bowling.

Tony Jensen.

Thanks Tony.