Taradale High School bowls singles players Adia Crawford and Nate Simes pull out the measuring tape under the watchful eye of coach Doug Tyrrell at Bowls Napier. Photo/Warren Buckland
Taradale High School bowls singles players Adia Crawford and Nate Simes pull out the measuring tape under the watchful eye of coach Doug Tyrrell at Bowls Napier. Photo/Warren Buckland
Slipping on the thinking cap is like brushing teeth for most people from day dot but the daily routine can become a little tiresome at times.
Consequently they look for some form of escapism — activities that come with the promise of retaining intellect but blend in fun, especially when it comes to fertile young minds.
For Taradale High School pupils that comes in the mould of sport — bowls, to be more precise.
"I think it's a fun sport with a social and thinking side where you just have some fun with it," says Year 10 pupil Nate Simes before coach Doug Tyrrell, from Bowls Napier, travels with the THS team of nine to the New Zealand Secondary Schools' Lawn Bowls Championship in Auckland on Monday.
In doing so THS will become the first Hawke's Bay school to take a team to the two-day nationals, starting on Tuesday.
Fellow Year 10 pupil Adia Crawford echoes Simes' sentiments.
"It's really mental," says Crawford who also plays canoe polo and hockey to representative level. "It's not like other sports where you have to be running fit [so for bowls] you have to be mentally fit."
The former Taradale Primary and Intermediate pair are immensely proud to be flying the Bay and THS flags at the event to be orchestrated from the headquarters based at Carlton Cornwall Club in Epsom.
"It's my first time at a nationals in anything," Simes says with a laugh, adding he's more excited than nervous with the prospect of playing the singles, as Crawford will be.
"It's all up to me and it's my thinking so I know what I have to do," says the teenager.
Simes saw an invite posted on the school notice board and felt compelled to give it a go with colleagues already playing bowls for six months.
The 14-year-old reveals he found it a little confusing the first time, not to mention jangled nerves.
It gnawed on his mind to keep the sphere in his lane rather than stray on to the adjacent ones.
However, Simes has well and truly passed the curly phase amid a healthy dose of laughter from school mates and positive reinforcement from Tyrell and fellow mentors Doug White and Lorraine Beaufort.
"I've definitely got a better posture and delivery now," he says, quietly confident he has acquired a sixth sense on the mat to draw mental pictures of where he wants the bowl to nestle with the kitty beckoning at the other end.
Simes is the tactical type and finds instant reinforcement in the discipline of finding the correct weight and balance but isn't shy if the need arises to rifle a shot to scatter the colony of bowls.
However, Crawford is trying to establish a more accentuated vision in finding a line with her deliveries, which she can store in the memory bank and call back at will.
Just as Simes' parents, Clare and Ivan, did, Crawford's mum Cara Bennett and father Shane Crawford really enjoyed a fun-and-games evening at the club in Marewa before Christmas.
Bowls Napier life member Doug White (kneeling), with former club president Ken Greeks, are on a drive to lure more youngsters into game. Photo/file
Simes says his parents are looking forward to another evening.
For him, the nationals are about exposure and returning home wiser for it.
Crawford harbours a desire to take bowls to the higher echelons.
Next week, she simply wants to give it her best shot to the tune of que sera sera.
The 14-year-old, who had a taste of indoor bowls at intermediate school with some of her current teammates, is mindful the average age of club players is 76 but that isn't a deterrent.
"I think it's really good that us younger people are getting involved so it [bowls] lasts much longer."
She relishes the advice older Bowls Napier members offer the youngsters on the lawns to improve their game.
Like Crawford, Simes loves playing board games although he isn't involved with any other sport.
Tyrrell says bowls offers an alternative to countless teenagers who aren't into physicality or high aerobics-type of codes.
"Bowls is about 85 per cent thinking rather than physical permutations," says the 72-year-old former salesman who retired in Napier more than three years ago after living in Auckland.
He noticed a few Napier Girls' High School pupils at the club who were playing bowls as part of their NCEA component.
"They were shy but excelled at bowls after a few lessons and I thought, 'Jeez, there must be lots of kids around like them'," says Tyrrell who struck a rapport with Sport Hawke's Bay to introduce to secondary schools.
Shrugging off the stigma of "old people" means it's still an evolving sport but he hastens to add it's those in the late teens and twenty-somethings who are winning most of the medals at the Commonwealth Games.
Tyrrell salutes Bowls NZ introducing Bowls3Five, a new fast format, involving set number of ends, a shot clock, double points and a tie breaker, if needed. It aims to fit into the busy lifestyles of time-poor people who still want a competitive fix.
Bowls3Five caters to three levels — a social format for twilight competitions, a nationwide interclub one and the inaugural televised league.
"It's a modern game ... which lasts an hour, it's quick fire and captures the attention of the youngsters to progress," says the Bowls NZ accredited coach who adopts the philosophy of getting children to ask questions rather than having adults feed them a load of details.
Tyrrell hopes to gain some mileage out of high schools, in conjunction with Sport HB, but it's imperative that other Bay clubs buy into the concept.
"What I would love to see is a 'Saturday morning sport' and bowls becoming part of the schools' sports programme."
He says the high school nationals is based on the Bowls3Five format, the first tourney after a hiatus of almost four years.
The nationals will have gender singles, but mixed gender triples teams from the same schools.
Tyrrell considers White as a mentor, who looks after the Bay development squad as well. Beaufort is a Bay club stalwart.
The Taradale High School bowls contingent who are off to the two-day New Zealand Secondary Schools' Lawn Bowls Championship in Auckland on Monday. Photo/supplied
TEAM
Nate Simes, Adia Crawford, Quentin Ball, Imogen Crawford, Ruby Marshall, Kees Tapine, Jakob Morris, Greer McCarthy, Thomas Mooney.
