Bowls: Teens contest national title

Whoever wins the men's fours in the bowls national championships today will become the youngest titleholder in history.

Five teenagers made the final - between composite fours skipped by Andrew Kelly, 18, from Oamaru, and 2004/5 singles champion Dwayne Cameron, of Auckland.

This guarantees a national title being won by the youngest ever player or players, confirmed Bowls NZ chief executive Kerry Clark.

"Shannon McIlroy - who plays three for Cameron - is only 18 and in Kelly's team, those boys are all teenagers as well," Clark said.

In fact, the youthsome foursome - besides Kelly there are Allan Stewart, 16, from Waihi, James Pugh, 17, from Nelson and Steven Wood, 19 from Wellington - produced the upset of the competition, coming from behind to topple defending champion Richard Girvan 18-13 in the quarter-finals.

The youngest person to win a men's national title goes back to 1958 when Phil Skoglund won the men's singles at the age of 21.

"We never really expected to come this far," Kelly, a member of the New Zealand under-18 squad, said. "We were just absolutely stoked as game by game we played better and better."

Among the more experienced players upset yesterday was Danny O'Connor, who played for the Girvan-skipped four.

O'Connor is bidding to become only the second man to win 10 national titles - the late Nick Unkovich was the first.

The women's fours final will be contested by Wellington's Meryle Mackie, of Taita, and Christchurch's Lorraine Davis, of Beckenham.

- NZPA