Bowls: Belliss gets ready for the last drive

TERRY MADDAFORD catches up with a bowls legend who is chasing a Commonwealth Games gold before taking a hard look at his future in the game.

Peter Belliss sent down his first bowl as a 5-year-old in Wanganui. Forty-five years on, the three-time world champion is about to call it quits.

Belliss, back in New Zealand for this week's triumphant transtasman series at Pakuranga, admitted this year's Manchester Commonwealth Games, where he will skip the four, could signal the end of one of the most glittering international careers the sport has seen.

Encouraged into the game by his father, Belliss was one of the first "young men in a hurry" to breach the long-held tradition of the sport being an "old man's game".

Belliss hardly fitted the mould of the beer-swilling old-timer who wandered down to his local club for a roll-up.

He mixed his bowls with rugby - good enough to play on the back of the Wanganui scrum in 1973 and 1977 - and was successful in both.

By 1978, as a 27-year-old, he was in the New Zealand team. He has rarely been missing since.

He stunned the traditionalists with his triumph in the singles at the 1982 world championships and followed that up six years later when he and Rowan Brassey took the pairs gold at the world championships at Henderson.

In 1990 Belliss added a third world gold when he, Brassey and Andrew Curtain won the triples.

The international merry-go-round has been demanding, leading to Belliss' rethink on his future.

"I was thrown a lifeline when they changed the rules on residential conditions," said Belliss, who had been forced on to the sideline when he moved to Australia.

"Originally I had seen 1996 as the end of the line but the rules were changed and I was back two years later for the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur."

The disappointment of missing out on a medal in Malaysia was enough to convince Belliss to go for one last hurrah.

"It has been a year-by-year thing," said Belliss, who remains one the most stylish players on New Zealand greens. "And now we have a number of players coming through.

"I still think I'm making a contribution but I will reassess things after the Games."

After playing at Noosa when he first went to live in Australia, Belliss is now bowls manager at the Cabramatta Bowling Club in Sydney.

He and Brassey played key roles in the club's success in last year's New South Wales premier league. Surprisingly, the club has decided not to defend their title this year, so Brassey has switched to The Hills club.

A gold star holder for having won five national titles, Belliss does not discount a return to New Zealand, but not in the immediate future.

"For me I have to be where I can earn a living from my sport. At the moment that is in Sydney, where I have a two-year contract with Cabramatta.

"I would like to come back to New Zealand and become involved in coaching but we will have to wait and see."

Belliss is grateful for the direction the sport here has taken under the new selector/team manager, Peter Kean, and his co-selectors, Peter Shaw and Bruce Malcolm.

"Having younger people in these key roles has made a huge difference and, I'm sure, played a part in keeping some of us in the sport.

"As manager, Peter Kean ensures there is a good strong management group. We just go out and do things and don't have worry about anything."

Not surprisingly, Belliss has the greatest respect for Brassey.

"He has been a major part of my bowling life. We have played together in pairs, triples and fours and built up a pretty good understanding. We are not extroverts. His strength is the draw, mine is playing shots. It works pretty well.

"I would rather play with him than against him, that's for sure."

It has been one of the most enduring partnerships in the sport - and certainly one of the most successful.

Gold in Manchester would, one feels, be the icing on Belliss' cake.