KEY POINTS:
Taranaki bowls player Bruce Phillips has been suspended from all bowls in the region until September, 2011.
The suspension was handed down to the Alton player after an emergency executive meeting of Bowls Taranaki last week, the Taranaki Daily News reported today.
Phillips' run-in with the establishment occurred during the men's Bill Smee interclub competition at the Hawera club on December 7.
Phillips was playing the singles for Alton against Manaia's Kevin Hills in the first of three scheduled rounds for the day.
Hills was leading 20-15, in the 21-shot match when Phillips conceded.
He then advised his Alton teammates he was not playing for the rest of the day, citing sub-standard greens.
"I accept that what I did was wrong - but I believe it is time that more people stood up and asked some questions of the centre," Phillips told the newspaper.
"They have a motion on their books that the best greens will be used, and that is not happening. I have had enough of it."
Phillips is expected to appeal the sentence on the grounds that the period of suspension is excessive.
"I should have robbed a bank," Phillips quipped. "I would have got five years and been out in two years on good behaviour."
Taranaki centre president Jan Waitere said the length of Phillips' suspension, which is the most debatable aspect of the decision, was the result of a succession of problems.
"The Alton club has always promised that he (Phillips) would improve.
"But we have had no option but to issue a lengthy sentence in this instance."
- NZPA
