Bowls: Cameron's loss bonus for fans

Dwayne Cameron is clearly on the verge of international honours. Picture / Simon Baker

Dwayne Cameron will be the main draw when the country's oldest invitation pairs tournament is held at Manurewa this weekend.

Now in its 28th year, the Manurewa invitation pairs starts tomorrow and continues on Sunday with the final on Monday.

The one variation in the two-by-two-by-two-by-two format is that for the first time sets will be used.

Though he won the national singles at Henderson in 2005, and followed that by skipping the winning national four in Wellington this month, Cameron has not been chosen for March's Commonwealth Games squad.

But he's clearly on the verge of international honours, and his missing the Games has made the Auckland anniversary weekend Manurewa tournament the main beneficiary.

Now playing out of the Counties-Manukau centre, Cameron will be paired this weekend with his old Poverty Bay mate, the 1994 national champion of champion singles titleholder and former New Zealand representative, David File.

Though many national representatives have commitments this week, a strong field has still been assembled for Manurewa, including the 2005 national pairs champions, Waikato's Kevin Robinson and Steve Posa, and several winners of past Manurewa tournaments such as Dunedin's Ken Walker and Jim Scott, Wanganui's Keith Slight, Bay of Plenty's Maurice Hickey and Auckland's Ivan Marsic.

The winners of the Warilla Masters in New South Wales, Sam Laguzza and Geoff McGillivary, will carry the Australian flag. Manurewa and Warilla have a reciprocal arrangement and first prize at Manurewa means automatic entry into the Warilla Masters, plus $1000 expenses.

One casualty of the ever-increasing bowls schedule, however, has been the Pat Campbell Memorial pairs, which has been held in each of the past two seasons at Auckland's Rawhiti club and was scheduled for today, tomorrow and Sunday. Tournament director Robin Ellery confirmed that because there were only 22 entries for a 32-team tournament, it had been decided to cancel. The club intends to stage the event next year.

However, helped in part by the Rawhiti cancellation, the North Harbour centre has a good entry for its invitation triples to be held at Browns Bay, starting tomorrow and finishing on Monday.

A total of $10,000, with first prize for the winning team of $2400, will be at stake.

Former national titleholders Neville Hill (Avondale) and Takapuna's Ross Haresnape are among the bowlers and prominent visitors include John Earles (Wellington), Kevin Archer (Dunedin) and Northland's John Dunn.