Rising star picked as player to beat

Young bowler Seamus Curtin takes on Steve Mitchell at the Browns Bay Bowling Club in Auckland for the national bowls championships. PHOTO/NZME

There are no prizes for guessing who will be the main drawcard when a high-quality field contests Bowls Wairarapa men's open singles tournament at the Lansdowne greens in Masterton on Saturday and Sunday.

A 15-year-old schoolboy from Wellington, Seamus Curtin, will be making his first appearance at this prestigious event and the Aotea College student has the form background to suggest he must be one of the favourites to capture the major spoils.

Curtin was runner-up to Australian Jonathan Davis at the Youth Commonwealth Games in Samoa late last year and has just been named in the New Zealand development team to take on their Australian counterparts in a three-test transtasman series in Christchurch in March.

His Samoan performance was particularly noteworthy because the greens there were much slower than what is normal in this country.

In bowling parlance they were running at 13 seconds compared with the 16 seconds or faster usually found in New Zealand.

To qualify for post-section play this weekend players will need to win at least three of their four pool games and Curtin will front up against four locals, Lester Dee (Martinborough), Rick Ellis (Featherston), Steve Willis (Greytown) and Ronald Saunders (Masterton).

They are all very competent players in their own right but a win for any of them over a player of Curtin's calibre would certainly rank as a big surprise.

Curtin is just one of several visiting players expected to feature prominently at Lansdowne. Andrew Johnson (Waikanae), Peter Ramsay (Heretaunga), Steve Mishkin (Waikanae) and Barry Cross (Central Levin) are all rated highly in their respective centres and have to be regarded as potential finalists as well.

Hopes of a Wairarapa victory will rest very much on the shoulders of an experienced quartet, Masterton trio Ian Monaghan, John Claydon and Warren Fisher and Featherston's Les O'Donovan. They have all been there, done that at tournaments of this magnitude with Monaghan closing in on a remarkable 60 centre titles.

Pool games get under way on Saturday at 9am with all matches being played first to 21. Meanwhile, the final points tables have been published for the Mitsubishi Motors interclub sevens competitions which were completed last weekend.

In the men's division one, Masterton A took the honours with 87 points, followed by Featherston 73, Greytown 66 and Martinborough 46, while in the men's division two, Eketahuna won with 75 points, followed by Carrington 55, Masterton Park 35 and Lansdowne and Masterton B, both 32.

In the women's division one series Masterton triumphed with 116 points. Featherston were runners-up with 72 and then came Lansdowne 43 and Greytown 42.

There were just two teams in women's division two with Carrington finishing first on 38 and Masterton B on 31.

The Wairarapa teams to contest the quadrangular tournament in Palmerston North on January 31 are:

Men's A: Singles: Ian Monaghan. Pairs: Les O'Donovan and Steve Willis. Fours: John Claydon, Mark Morete, Warren Wyeth and Joseph Hanjos.

Men's B: Singles: Scott MacKenzie. Pairs: Hayden Frew and Carwyn Caffell. Fours: Richard Anderson, Bill Isaac, Ronald Saunders, Rick Ellis.

Women's A: Singles: Makaia Campbell. Pairs: Fiona Mancer and Dorothy Christensen. Fours: Dale Rowe, Wendy Mitchell, Tina Hogg, Jean Paku.

Women's B: Singles: Shirley Poutu. Pairs: Leanne Sweeney and Kaye Lahman. Fours: Janelle Frew, Leah MacKenzie, Mary-Anne Ashworth, Rachel Bennett. Reserve: Viv Ellam.