Bowls: NZ bowlers in medals

New Zealand are assured of two bronze medals - at least - at the world bowls championships in Johannesburg.

The unbeaten triples team of Peter Belliss, Rowan Brassey and Andrew Curtain beat Australia 16-10 and Israel 22-9 yesterday to finish first in their section. They will play Ireland today, while Scotland meet the Australians in the other semifinal.

Paul Girdler and Russell Meyer lost their first game in the pairs yesterday, going down 15-23 to Hong Kong, but they bounced back to beat Ireland 16-14.

Although they still have Zambia to play today, they are assured of a semifinal berth.

"We'll have a bronze medal at least in both the pairs and triples but we're aiming beyond bronze," team manager Peter Kean said. "If you look at all our results we've been very conservative in all our games - only about nine points scored against us in each of them. We're very happy about that.

"Andrew's been leading very well in the triples and Rowan just consolidates in the middle, allowing Peter to play an attacking game right through.

"In the pairs I think Russell has played just one bad game so far and that was against Hong Kong today. But he's been leading magnificently and Paul's been very consistent."

The New Zealand women's team won two gold medals at their world championships in Australia last week.

- NZPA