Bowls: Omarunui fours do it for 'little club'

GRINNERS: Omarunui Bowling Club members Jan Henderson (left), Ngaire McKinley, Dot Palmer and Robyn Wallace, who won the fours national club title in Hamilton. PHOTO/FILE

Nevermind about rolling out the mat, just go straight to the map if you want to find champion bowlers in New Zealand.

That's because another club reinforced Hawke's Bay's status on the New Zealand map after claiming the bragging rights at the national club championship in Hamilton yesterday.

The Omarunui Bowling Club women's fours team of Robyn Wallace (skip), Dot Palmer, Ngaire McKinley and Jan Henderson beat Dunedin's Janet Swallow, Barbara Archer, Judy Robertson, Shona Morrison (Taieri Bowling Club) 15-10 in the final at the Stadium Bowling Club.

"It's great to do it for our little club at home," a delighted Wallace said last night as the team stop at a Tokoroa petrol station to refuel on their way home.

She said their club had rallied to raise funds to meet the expenses of travelling and competing at the nationals so it was great to be able to repay the club with a title.

"We were only able to field a sevens team at our interclub competition this year," she said, emphasising they didn't have the numbers of the other more competitive clubs in the Bay.

The Omarunui fours' acquisition comes on the heels of Bowls Taradale's Louise Fitness and Jo Hayes clinching the women's pairs crown while Lloyd Fitness finished runners up in the singles.

Bowls Taradale member Liffy Law also made the cut in the singles before joining Susan Belcher and Heather Leyland to do the hard yards in the triples.

Wallace and her teammates only made the quarter-finals as the "next best differential" (No7 qualifiers for the three remaining berths) after the winners of the five sections progressed straight to the playoffs. "Sometimes that makes it a little bit harder to compete."

That stiff challenge came up first thing in the quarter-finals against Waikato's Bev Corbett (skip), Debbie White, Linda Jeffries, Jocelyn Holter (Hinuera).

"We played Bev Corbett's team from Waikato and she's a former New Zealand rep, but we got through by two."

Having weathered that storm, it was simply a case of "taking each game as it came along" for the Omarunui fours.

They beat Colleen Griffiths (skip), Jan Gledhill, Theresa Rogers, Caryl Miles (Mairangi Bay) in the semifinals.

"We knew Dunedin [Taieri] were going to be hard in the final."

Wallace is a former Wairoa resident who played for Gisborne/East Coast before moving to Napier four years ago.

All three Omarunui members, bar Palmer, were celebrating their maiden national crown last night.

Palmer is a former Taupo representative bowler who also moved to the Bay after winning the national pairs title in 2009 with Robyn Martin, of Taupo.

McKinley, according to Bowl Hawke's Bay president Colleen Ferrick, is "a very capable bowler".

Henderson assumed the mantle of "fill-in" lead in the Omarunui fours because the permanent choice, Merle McLean, had undergone knee surgery when the preliminary event was held in the Bay.

"Dot, Ngaire and I play a lot and we won the champion-of-champions triples a few weeks ago," Wallace said, revealing Henderson was in the fours there so she became a logical replacement. "We lost our first game by one before winning the next two games."

Brent Turner, Kerry Chapman, Scott Evans, Rory Soden (Brown's Bay) won the men's four title at Claudelands BC.