Bowls: Powerful Kelly four spoils party for Avondale quartet

Andrew Kelly. Photo / Steven McNicholl

A fairytale result which many Auckland bowlers would have relished, a win to Neville Hill, did not eventuate yesterday as Canterbury's Andrew Kelly skipped his team of some of the country's most promising players to an easy win in the national fours final at Carlton-Cornwall.

Kelly's powerful line-up of Ali Forsyth, Blake Signal and Greg Ruaporo needed only 14 of the scheduled 18 ends to beat Hill's Avondale four of Mike Bradshaw, Colin Haysham and Brett Hassall 18-6.

Once Kelly picked up a four on the fourth end to go to an 8-1 lead the win became a foregone conclusion, with the Avondale bowlers, all of whom favour fast greens, struggling to adjust to a strong crosswind and a rink that Kelly said was sluggish.

Kelly, at 23 and with a side with an average age in the mid-20s, thus became the youngest skip to win a national fours title, beating some of the greats of New Zealand bowls who have also been national champions in their 20s, including Phil Skoglund, Gary Lawson and Rowan Brassey. But Kelly, who started bowling in his hometown, Oamaru, as a 12-year old, emphasised his win was a team effort.

"I've been privileged to have played here with some fantastic bowlers," he said.

For his two, Signal, it was a satisfactory tournament and, with his pairs win last week, he shared the tournament's consistency prize with Nelson's Peter Hodson, who won the singles and was runner-up in the pairs.

Whether Kelly's four defend the title next year in New Plymouth is questionable. Forsyth may be with the team of mainly top of the South Island bowlers, which he skipped to the title last year, and Signal may be with other Wellingtonians. Kelly said it was likely he and Ruaporo, a 21-year-old from Auckland's Hillsboro club, would be together.

Hill, one of the best talents never to have won a national championship, despite many near misses, was playing in his first final. He was typically philosophical about the defeat.

His lead Hassall, who started playing bowls with the great All Black of the 1960s, Ross Brown, at Taranaki's Fitzroy club, was also trying to break his family's run of narrow misses at the nationals.

His father, Rodger, played under another Taranaki skip, Dave Baldwin, in the 1993 final at Matamata, but lost to a Lawson-skipped composite.