Bowls: Big names go through to Manurewa pairs semis

One of New Zealand bowls' men of the moment, Dwayne Cameron, is a step closer to taking out the prestigious Manurewa invitation pairs classic.

Cameron, partnering old Gisborne clubmate David File, plays today's semifinals against Auckland veterans Nick Grgicevic and Mike Farac but only after surviving a torrid quarter-final with Wanganui's Keith Slight and Ray Park.

Cameron and File won the first set 9-2, dropped the second 1-12 and went bowl for bowl before prevailing in the tiebreak 2-0.

Today's other semifinal will be between Waikato's 2005 national pairs champions Kevin Robinson and Steve Posa and Bay of Plenty father-son combination of Maurice and Paul Hickey, who won this tournament in 2001.

Meanwhile, most of the leading combinations made it through to today's quarter-finals of the North Harbour centre's premier invitation triples at the Browns Bay club.

However, as a reflection of some cut-throat competition, none emerged from section play qualifying with a maximum seven wins, making the differential in some instances crucial.

Skips who qualified with six wins were David Eades (North Harbour), Shaun Bayne (Harbour), John Dunn (Northland), and Petar Sain (Auckland).

Those who made it with five wins were Glenn Pepper (Harbour), Rob Laird (Harbour), Steve Cox (Auckland) and John Walker (Harbour).

Among the high-profile casualties were Harbour's Ross Haresnape, who had a former national champion Wally Marsic as his middle man, and longtime Auckland representative Clive Major.

Haresnape, Marsic and their young lead Brook Tippett missed out through losing to Laird on an extra end, and Laird, from the host Browns Bay club, also had an early 16-12 win over Sain, Turner and their lead, a junior from Harbour, David Stephens.

Sain won his key clash with Major's lineup 16-15 to end its hopes.

Cox, playing with his Henderson club-mates Kevin Craft and Garry Breckon, was a late entry because of the cancellation of the Rawhiti invitation pairs.