Leading bowls figures are critical of the way the match-fixing issue has been handled and say there are wider issues affecting the sport, writes Lindsay Knight.
New Zealand lawn bowlers, from humble roll-up levels to the game's elite, have been left bemused by the saga involving Bowls New Zealand chief executive Kerry Clark and one of the country's greatest players, Gary Lawson.
As a result of an exhaustive judicial process, the careers of Lawson and the players he skipped at the Asia Pacific Games in Kuala Lumpur last August (Shayne Sincock, Shannon McIlroy and Jamie Hill) are in limbo.
Their offence, as upheld by a judicial panel, has been to have deliberately lost the 17th end of the 18-ends fours match against Thailand, which brought about an upset defeat.
While New Zealand had already qualified for the playoffs, that loss meant another country, Canada, missed out.
But according to a range of bowling experts, including some of Lawson's most illustrious contemporaries, Peter Belliss and Rowan Brassey, what the Lawson four did was something which has happened many times before, mainly because of inherent weaknesses in the differential points system used to determine quarter-final places.
"Players get hammered in the neck that winning medals is all-important for gaining funding for the sport," Belliss says.
"It puts them in a difficult situation and puts them under a lot of pressure. Obviously teams will look to get the easiest playoff matches."
What happened in Kuala Lumpur, indeed, was no different from what occurred in the world championships in Christchurch in 2008, when New Zealand dropped a six on the last end against Ireland and the narrow New Zealand win meant Scotland missed a qualifying place.
Despite media reports mentioning New Zealand suddenly dropping six shots and that it had caused some acrimony, the episode wasn't aired in public.
Media reports since have suggested that Lawson was involved in that too and was censured - but without all the attendant publicity of this incident.
Brett O'Riley, a former president of the Professional Bowls Association, to which most of the country's best players belong, says that compared to the issues confronting other major sports, the Kuala Lumpur incident was a minor infraction. Yet it was allowed to drag on for far too long.
"Has it been handled professionally?" he asks. "I don't think so.
"Some of the most promising bowlers in the country have been hung out to dry when a lot of time, effort and money have been invested in them. That would all have been better spent keeping them in the game rather than ostracising them."
What also bewilders New Zealand's bowlers is how a personality clash between the game's top administrator, Clark, and best player, Lawson, has been allowed to escalate into what has been one of the biggest controversies for the sport in this country. The only positive, if it can be called that, is that it has given bowls a rare media profile.
But it's something which has come at huge cost, both financially and in preparing for this year's Commonwealth Games.
"It's a huge stuff-up, especially with the Games coming up, because what would have been the nucleus of the team has been affected," says Brassey.
Belliss wonders whether the position of the coach, Dave Edwards, is tenable. It was largely on his evidence the players were "tried", so inevitably his relationship with whoever was chosen would be now uneasy, he said.
For the average bowler, there might also be room to wonder how much money and time have been directed at this issue, when it is no secret that the game has many other problems.
Not all of these are the fault of administrators, and nor are they confined to bowls. Recreational sport has been a major casualty of seven-day shop trading.
The need for people to work and many other competing attractions to bowls have seen playing numbers plummet. Many clubs have folded or been forced into amalgamations and one centre, Counties, has become effectively insolvent.
The struggle of clubs has not been helped by ever-increasing capitation fees imposed by Bowls New Zealand. In 2007, $21.44 of a player's annual subscription was siphoned off by the national body. In 2008, that increased to $23.17 and in 2009, it was up to $27.
As well, Bowls NZ in 2008 proposed a levy on clubs for casual, unregistered players playing in business house-type tournaments. That was dropped when the anger of clubs became plain but at least one administrator, Auckland centre life member and former chairman Kevin Hickland, believes it could yet be revived.
What the run-of-the mill bowlers gain from this is questionable and Hickland believes that they should be demanding answers from Bowls NZ.
At the game's top end, Brassey endorses Lawson's contention that New Zealand bowls has gone backwards in the past 20 years.
"There are now no tournaments held in New Zealand to attract top overseas players," he points out.
"They used to happen in the 1970s and '80s when Ian Birch was running things. But they don't happen any more."
What was happening in New Zealand contrasted with Australia, where the game was booming. Prize money at the New Zealand national championships barely covered travel and accommodation costs.
There's also a perception that national selection policies are based more on promoting an image of youth and athleticism rather than results and performances.
Former national champion Danny O'Connor, consistently overlooked for national selection since the early 1980s despite being acclaimed by his peers, says many players chosen in national squads are almost unknown.
"That's not to say they aren't good bowlers but there's a feeling they are picked on potential rather than performance," he says.
He believes bowls would be better served trying to recruit players in their mid-30s to mid-50s, once the game's backbone, rather than concentrating on teenagers, many of whom quickly drop out of the sport.
All of this has happened under the 16-year watch of Clark, firstly as chairman and then as chief executive. There is general regard for many of Clark's achievements and his acumen, and as a Commonwealth Games gold medallist (at Christchurch in 1974), there's no doubt of his bowls pedigree.
He's also highly esteemed by the country's main funding agency, Sparc.
But there's less acclaim for him in bowls circles. It's unlikely to happen, given Clark's standing with Sparc, but Hickland believes there is now a case for Sparc to reappraise bowls administration, as has been done with rugby league.
Among the New Zealand bowling elite, there appears to be far more sympathy for Lawson than Clark, even from those who recognise that much of the controversy which engulfs Lawson has often been self-inflicted.
But while he's a stormy petrel reminiscent of Nick Unkovich in the 1970s, O'Connor says if a vote were taken among New Zealand bowlers, 95 per cent would want Clark out.
Hickland says: "Gary has got a lot of backing and moral support." Clark "has been there too long and has lost contact with the grassroots".
There also appeared little interest in enlisting other top officials, as evidenced by an apparent reluctance to have a top administrator and successful businessman like Terry O'Connor on the national board.
Danny O'Connor (no relation to Terry) says bowls administration appeared to have been needlessly over-complicated from the 1970s when the national body was run mainly by volunteers.
He believed there were many now in administration who probably did not know what side of a bowl the bias was on.
Though Belliss says he is not aware of any directive to selectors, there's a widespread belief that he and Brassey were both sidelined from national selection once they reached 50.
There's also surprise that an accomplished player such as Waikato's Kevin Robinson, now 59 and soon to relocate to Australia, never made a New Zealand team.
Some wonder, too, whether the stockily-built Aucklander Danny Delany, recent winner of the national pairs title with Lawson, will win national team recognition because he doesn't look like an athlete. There has been emphasis in recent times on selecting bowlers who are physically fit.
More supportive of Clark was one of his playing contemporaries, the great Manawatu bowler Phil Skoglund, who has also been involved with the game administratively.
"I don't agree with the view that it is a witch-hunt by Kerry against Gary Lawson. In my view, world bowls asked Bowls New Zealand to take action and BNZ had no option but to do so," he said.
But he was saddened by the publicity surrounding the saga, which had done the sport harm.
"I don't blame Gary, either," he said. "Really, I blame the format used at world bowls. It's a stupid format and makes it inevitable for this sort of thing to happen."
Skoglund was also puzzled by some of the selection policies of recent years, especially overlooking a bowler of Belliss' experience.
"He's only 58 and I learn he hasn't played for New Zealand for six years. That's staggering. If Gary is suspended, then who can they turn to to take his place at the Games? There's no one else and, if it were me, I'd turn to someone like Peter."
Having been based in Australia for some years, Belliss says he isn't fully conversant with all New Zealand's issues. But there appeared to be growing criticism of Bowls NZ and the consensus appeared to be that Clark had lost touch with players and it was time for new ideas.
Belliss wondered whether funding was being wisely spent when national teams now had so many support staff. He was puzzled that high performance managers were brought in with no bowls background.
"We seem to have lost the plot in the last 10 years," he says. "I'd hate to think of someone not being selected for New Zealand because of their physical shape. We're bowlers but they've tried to turn us into athletes."
* An approach to Kerry Clark to comment on the issues raised here drew the response from Bowls NZ that their CEO could not comment while the process regarding the match-fixing incident was still under way.
