Outstanding nationals for Poverty Bay-East Coast bowlers

Happy family . . . Nathan Trowell, his cousins Matthew and Dylan Foster, and father Mal Trowell with the Stoneham Shield after winning the open fours title at the 73rd National Open and Masters Indoor Bowls championship in New Plymouth. They won the final 10-9. It was an outstanding nationals for Nathan and Mal who won the open pairs crown as well. Nathan also got to the semifinal of the singles and was named player of the tournament. Picture by Chris Guy

Gisborne indoor bowlers stormed the ramparts of the national championships in New Plymouth last week.

Nathan Trowell, now based in Auckland but with Gisborne in his bones, won the Robertson Trophy for player of the tournament, while Poverty Bay-East Coast masters players Warren Gibb and Lois Lamont were jointly awarded the Rayner Family Trophy for masters player of the tournament.

Gibb and Lamont were runners-up in the masters pairs and joined Bryan Pulley and Nanette Treloar to win the masters fours.

Eighteen-year-old Trowell, attending only his second national championships, was a member of the winning open pair, with his father Mal. In the final they beat another father-son combination, Golden Bay’s Nigel Warnes and his son Hayden, 11-5.

The Trowells then joined forces with Nathan’s cousins Matthew and Dylan Foster, 19 and 17 respectively, and won that title, beating Invercargill’s Gary, Graham and Jan Low, and Warwick Gray, 10-9, to be awarded the Stoneham Shield.

The Trowell-Foster four were not sure of the win until their opponents’ last bowl gained only one of the two shots required to take the game to an extra end, and skip Nathan did not need to send down his last bowl. Mal was lead, Dylan (attending his first national champs) two, and Matthew three.

Nathan had started the week by reaching the semifinals of the open singles and finished it with selection — with cousin Matthew — in the North Island team to play the South Island in August. They were both in the North Island team who beat the South Island last year to win the Kevin Eddy Memorial Trophy, and both have won the national junior singles title.

Matthew is attending the Tairāwhiti campus of the Eastern Institute of Technology doing the Bachelor of Business course, while Nathan is studying health science at the Auckland University of Technology.

They and Dylan share a set of grandparents (Bruce and Kaye Easton) and their mothers are sisters (Karyn, married to Mike Foster, and Jenny, married to Mal Trowell).

Bruce and Kaye Easton introduced Matthew to indoor bowls by taking him to a club night when he was about 12. Nathan was about 10 when his father took him along to indoor bowls during the school holidays when they were living in Taupo.

Nathan, Matthew and Dylan also play cricket well, and Mal has been player-coach of the Gisborne Boys’ High School first 11. Football is another sporting interest but has taken a back seat to indoor bowls as a winter pastime.

In the national champs open fours, Poverty Bay-East Coast players David Lynn and Tauranga-based Keith Setter were in a Waikato team that reached the semifinal but lost to the Trowell-Foster four 11-3.

In the masters division, Poverty Bay-East Coast bowlers Gibb and Lamont received their joint award after reaching two masters finals during the week of competition.

They were runners-up in the masters pairs, losing the final to a New Lynn pair, 16-7. They then joined Pulley and Treloar to win the fours competition after finishing runners-up last year. This year they met last year’s winners in the semifinal and turned the tables on them.

In the final they met a team with a wealth of masters success behind them — Brian Hardgrave, Bari Oliver, Maureen Dravitski and David Brunton — and beat them 8-5.