INDOOR BOWLS - Underdogs off to dig up meatiest bone of all

The Northland indoor bowls mixed four took an underdog's attitude to their national final in Napier today, ranking their chance of adding more silverware to the province's cabinet as only a possibility.
Team spokesman Michael Teirney said the four had as much chance as anyone lining up at the Napier Indoor Bowls Centre but compared with some of the players they would come up against, the Northland team were inexperienced.
"But with all the top New Zealand players playing in this tournament, we're sort of taking the attitude that the bigger they are, the harder they fall," Teirney said.
The four collectively claimed their first Northland centre titles when they came out on top in the competition to represent Northland at the Zone 1 regional qualifier.
They then earned the respect of the Northland indoor bowling community by winning a place at the nationals by winning the Zone 1 qualifier, beating Auckland on a countback of ends in Auckland at the end of June.
"I'm pretty rapt with getting as far as we have, to be honest, but to get third or even second would make it a pretty satisfying competition for us," Teirney said.
The team consists of John Teirney and Michael Teirney, of Kawakawa RSA, Kaikohe's Jeanette Smith and Onerahi's Inez Bunting.
The North Taranaki four of John Zittersteijn, Grant Harvey, Elizabeth Morrow and Barbara Batley are favourites for the New Zealand Indoor Bowls Mixed Fours title, with Zittersteijn and Morrow on the winning team for the past two years.
With several national titles between the North Taranaki team, the enormity of the challenge is acknowledged by Teirney.
"We're moving up another level now and we'll be playing up against players at the New Zealand level but we'll try our best - that's all we can do."
Play in the finals is on a round-robin basis and Northland face competition from the seven other winners of regional qualifiers: Poverty Bay, North Taranaki, Manawatu, Upper Hutt Valley, Nelson, Ashburton and Southland.