KEY POINTS:
Rain caused consternation at the national championships in Dunedin yesterday but it didn't stop young guns Andrew Kelly, Stephen Wood, James Pugh and Alan Stewart, who sensationally reached the fours final a year ago, from qualifying once again.
No longer can they be labelled a bunch of teenagers because Wood has turned 20 but they are the youngest team at the nationals by a considerable margin. Skip Kelly, only 18, said his team were performing "really well" and were relishing the opportunity to match their achievements in Wellington.
"We're not looking too far ahead," he said. "But we are gelling well as a team. We're all a year older and a lot more experienced."
Indeed, Kelly and Stewart represented New Zealand in the junior transtasman clash against Australia in December, while Kelly and Pugh qualified for post-section play in the singles. They were anonymous 12 months ago until creating history by making the final where Dwayne Cameron's team - also featuring a teenager, Shannon McIlroy - beat them.
Rain flooded the greens after lunch yesterday, causing the abandonment of the sixth qualifying round. It was decided all who had won at least three of their five qualifying matches would advance to post-section play today.
That news was a relief for a few highly-regarded combinations sitting on three wins. That included Terry Scott's team of brother Jim, cousin Shaun and Stephen O'Driscoll, and Nigel Thompson's Stoke team of Deane Surridge, Tom Kopura and Peter Rutherford.
One skip who surprisingly missed out was Mike Kernaghan. He played magnificent bowls on Thursday to win the pairs final with David Archer but couldn't recapture his magic touch yesterday. His team of David Archer, Kevin Archer and Robert Gibson managed just two victories.
All the fancied names are through in the women's fours, with the teams skipped by title holder Lorraine Davis, pairs champion Sharon Sims, 2004 winner Maureen Parker, Southland's Sue Wilson and Northland's Anne Bateman prominent among them.
Their toughest competition in post section could well come from the Malaysian teams skipped by Nor Hashimah Ismail and Siti Zalena Ahmad.
