Bowls: Advantage to Australia early in trans-Tasman bowls

Shannon McIlroy playing for the Black Jacks. Photo / Supplied

Day One of the Trans-Tasman bowls at Burnside saw Australia win the first test seven games to five with the Australian Men's team winning 4/2 & the NZ & Australian women locked up at 3 games each but NZ having the superior differential over Australia to win the first test

In the last round we saw a convincing display by the NZ Women's Pairs combination of Val Smith and Joe Edwards defeating the powerful Australian combination of Karen Murphy and Kelsey Cottrell 24 to 11. Mandy Boyd and her new team of Kirsten Griffin and Selina Goddard run out the winners by 15/13 over their Australian opposition- the Boyd skipped Triples Team won both games today in a very promising start for this new combination

In the Men's test Australia showed their dominance on Day 1 with their convincing performance in the second round which saw Aaron Sherriff defeat Ali Forsyth 21/7 in the Singles & the Mark Casey skipped fours team overpower Paul Girdler 18/8 however an improved performance by the NZ Men in Round three saw the Paul Girdler skipped triples team all locked up at 14/14 after 17 of the 18 ends only to drop a 3 on the last end to go down 17/14. The Pairs combination of Ali Forsyth & Mike Nagy struggled early to be down 11/6 after 12 of the 18 ends and then score on 5 of the 6 remaining ends to run out the winners over Nathan Rice and Ray Pearse 12/11. This win gave Nagy & Forsyth two from two in the Pairs on Day 1.

In the Development test Australia were too strong for NZ running out winners 8 games to 4.

The test series will continue tomorrow and Thursday.