Bowls: Bowls icon remains a contender

MELBOURNE - You could say the clock has come full circle for Rowan Brassey, who goes into next week's pairs competition with young turk Jamie Hill as one of the top prospects for gold.

The irony of Brassey, 54, being paired with Hill, 26, is that Brassey burst on to the scene as one of the young guns who transformed bowls from being an old man's game.

Hill is carrying on that theme - with the New Zealand bowls contingent a younger, fitter lot than the bulkier citizens of dubious diet practices in previous times.

But you can't beat experience and Brassey's unflappable temperament combined with Hill's burgeoning talent - his efforts at the world indoor championships and elsewhere recently catapulted him into the top rank of world bowlers - appeals as a strong Commonwealth Games medal prospect.

Brassey and the Hill family have been linked before, with Jamie's father Neville playing one of his few international matches for New Zealand when Brassey pulled out of a tournament in the 1990s.

Jamie was barely a teenager when he first teamed up with Brassey at Okahu Bay.

"It was such a great thing for a 13-year-old to be playing with someone like Rowan Brassey and Neville Hill, just amazing really. It really gave me a taste of things to come," said Hill.

Not that Jamie needed Brassey to spur his bowls ambitions. He had been involved with the game through his father as a seven-year-old and has now played pairs with Brassey for four years.

"I have been leading and he has been skipping a lot of the time," said Brassey, "but I think here he will lead and I will skip."

Brassey is in his sixth Commonwealth Games, Hill his first.

Brassey said the Melbourne greens were slower than he would like but the team had prepared well in Melbourne conditions and had played there many times.

The team are on a high having won not only the transtasman trophy from Australia but also the Tri-Nations with Australia and Malaysia - and the Australians are a young team this year, having lost some of their veterans.

But Brassey said Scottish pair Alex Marshall and Foster Paul are the favourites and anyone from Britain will be a handful.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY