KEY POINTS:
While absences such as that of defending singles champion Tony Grantham may lessen some northern interest, a strong overseas component will help compensate when the national bowls championships start in Christchurch today.
Grantham, from North Harbour's Birkenhead club, cannot spare the time off work to defend the title he won so dramatically last season, a reminder that in an era of high travel and accommodation costs even top bowls remains essentially amateur.
Two other leading bowlers from the Auckland region, Rowan Brassey and Jamie Hill, with overseas professional commitments becoming their priority, also won't be in Christchurch, and nor will Mike Kernaghan who won the national championship pairs last season with an old Dunedin teammate, Dave Archer.
But these absentees will not affect the quality in any of the three disciplines, singles, pairs and fours, in both men's and women's events to be decided over the next 12 days. The start of the world championships in Christchurch on January 12 has ensured this season's championships will be an important pipe-opener for that event.
Canadians, English men and women and Malaysians will provide the championships with a cosmopolitan flavour.
Malaysia's Nor Fidrah Noh, for instance, will be trying to repeat her effort 12 months ago in winning the national women's singles. And in the fours, which begin after singles and pairs, on January 5, there will be a powerful English men's world championship line-up of Robert Newman, Stephen Farish, Graham Shadwell and Mark Bantock.
New Zealand's men's four for the worlds, Gary Lawson, Russell Meyer, Richard Girvan and Andrew Todd, are also using the nationals as an important step in its build-up.
Among the other fours will be last season's championships, the South Canterbury composite skipped by Sean O'Neill.
And even without Grantham, Brassey and Hill, the men's singles field bristles with class. Malaysian Safaun Said will be attempting to emulate his countrywoman, Noh, against a battery of past titleholders in Aucklander Petar Sain (1991 and 2000), Lawson (1989 and 1994), Jim Scott (1982), Terry Scott (1990), Kelvin Scott (1998), Justin Goodwin (1999), world championship representative Ali Forsyth (2003-04) and Alan Dickson (2006).
Sain and Goodwin, both in the singles and pairs, will ensure some high profile northern involvement. Sain will partner his Carlton-Cornwall clubmate Wally Marsic, with whom he won the title in 2003, and Goodwin will reunite with his old Takapuna and North Harbour team-mate Doug Wilson. Both of these two former national representatives have relocated in recent months to Australia.
The men's pairs will be especially competitive, with section four a vivid illustration of the quality. This is something of "a pool of death" with Kelvin Scott and another past titleholder Maurice Symes, and Bay of Plenty's Steve Beel and Chris Smith, just a few of the crack combinations in it.
Section four also contains a touch of nostalgia. Bruce McNish, a multiple national champion now based in Australia, will play with Nick Buttar, the 21-year old son of the late Stu, with whom McNish won this title in 1994. They also won fours titles together in 1993-94.
The women's pairs title will have its own drama, too. The redoubtable Sharon Sims, and her lead Mary Campbell, having won in 2006 and 2007, will be going for a rare hat-trick. Having won the recent New Zealand Open at Henderson, they will start as favourites.
The winning women's skip from last season, Canterbury's Bev Morel, has returned to defend her title, but will have a slightly different combination from the Elmwood club.
As with the men's events, the entry from prominent northern women has been sparse. But a number of Auckland and North Harbour representatives, including Reen Stratford, Jo Babich, Keren Guy, Gail Dick, Carol Griffiths and Lin East, have journeyed south. Whangarei's powerful Kensington club, with recent champions in Ann Muir, Caroline Downs, Nancy Jujunovich, Anne Bateman and Jan McLean, will be there in force.
Two gold medal winners from the 1990 Auckland Commonwealth Games, Judy Howat and Marie Watson, also return to the national stage. Wellington's Howat is in all three disciplines while Watson, now in Nelson and a national champion in the event in 19996-97, 1999 and 2003, will play the singles and with Cantabrian Jan Shirley in the pairs.
