Hastings pair take SI bowls tourney

A team from Hastings won the inaugural South Island development pairs bowls tournament in Timaru.

Bevan Webb and Merv Brown won the final at the Kia Toa green on Monday, beating another visiting team, Mitch and Cameron Cook (Dunedin) in the final.

Kia Toa’s Aaron Taylor and Craig Stewart were the best performed of the South Canterbury contingent reaching the semifinals of the first division in finishing third equal with Max Brydon and Taran Moanaroa (Blenheim).

One of the organisers, Danny Johnston, said the performance of Timaru rookies Gary Bland and Phil Quinn won many fans and a standing ovation from the crowd at prizegiving.

Quinn has been playing the sport for just three weeks while Bland is a first-year bowler and after they took some heavy thumpings in qualifying play, losing every game by wide margins, they bounced back in post-section play.

‘‘They were a late entry to stop the bye. They ended up in division four and won all their post-section games to take out that division. It was great.’’

Johnston was thrilled with the standard of the tournament, organised by the Kia Toa club to provide better development opportunities for South Island players with up to eight years experience.

‘‘It was really good, a great calibre of play. The teams from away were very good and it was great for the development of the new players from here.

‘‘It has really put us on the map that Timaru is the place to come to. We got great reviews and many of the visiting teams have already pre-booked spots for next year.

‘‘It is definitely going ahead next year.’’

Johnston did not expect any changes to the format saying that it had worked well.