Bowls: Medal hopes struggling to qualify on 'awful' greens

Two of New Zealand's fancied bowls teams, the women's four and the men's pair, lost matches yesterday and now face battles to qualify for the next round.

The women's four of Wendy Jensen, Patsy Jorgensen, Jan Khan and Anne Lomas squeaked through 19-14 after a storming comeback in the last two ends of their first match against Malaysia.

But they lost the day's second encounter, 19-11, against South Africa in another dramatic encounter.

New Zealand were holding seven shots on the 15th and last end, but the South African skip drew the shot with her final bowl.

They have now won two and lost two of their six section matches.

With four of the seven teams qualifying for the quarter-finals, it was expected New Zealand would qualify. But another loss could leave them dependent on other teams' results to go through and will ensure they have tough opposition in the next round.

They play Fiji and the Cook Islands next, neither an easy prospect.

The men's pair of Russell Meyer and Paul Girdler are in an even worse position with just one win from three games. They lost 14-9 to a strong England team yesterday and now face a South African pair.

It wasn't all bad news for New Zealand, though. The men's four of Andrew Curtain, Rowan Brassey, Sean Johnson, Peter Belliss made it two from two when they won a tight tussle against Namibia, 13-11.

After taking an early lead, the Kiwis were overtaken by the 12th end, but then won five shots on the next two ends to secure the match.

The women's pair of Sharon Sims and Jo Edwards also made it two from two with a comprehensive 26-6 victory over Malawi.

The results yesterday confirmed that most of the New Zealand bowlers have struggled to come to terms with the slow Heaton Park greens, which Lomas has described as "awful."

For the women's four the day could have been even worse, having already suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Jersey on the first day.

They looked as if they were heading the same way against Malaysia, but after trailing until the 13th end they had a storming finish, picking up five shots on the 14th and four more on the last end.

The men's pair, who had also been upset by Jersey on the first day, strode to a 4-2 lead against the strong England line-up of Dean Morgan and Steve Farish. But they surrendered that on the fifth end and the English, playing in front of a couple of hundred vocal supporters, ground the New Zealanders down.

Girdler and Meyer failed to get another shot until the ninth end, and by the 13th were trailing 13-8.

Down 14-8 on the last, Girdler played two spectacular drives to kill the end, but the result was inevitable.

- NZPA

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