Moffat in N.Z. bowls trials

Press, 30 June 1983, Page 32

Moffat in N.Z. bowls trials

Just one Christchurch lawn bowler, Morgan Moffat, has been named for trials in August to help select a New Zealand team for a series of international events over the next 12 months.

The team’s main objective will be the world championships in Aberdeen in July of next year. The team has to be named early to meet a request from the Scottish Bowling Association that it has the names of the five players by October.

However, the New Zealand Bowling Association is turning the request to its advantage. The trials will be held in Cambridge, where there is a 132 ft green — the size of the greens to be used in Aberdeen — and

its winter pace of about nine seconds will be about what the teams in Aberdeen can expect. The 10 trialists are Peter Beiliss (Wanganui), Ron Brassey, Danny O’Connor and Nick Unkovich (all Auckland), lan Dickison and Stuart McConnell (both Dunedin), Jim Scott (Wellington), John Murtagh (Taranaki), Phil Skoglund (Manawatu) amd Moffat. All 10 have international experience and they have all represented New Zealand overseas in recent years. An interesting selection is Skoglund, who announced after the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane last year that he had retired from international competition. He jjfrs apparently changed

his mind. Skoglund has been a national selector for the last three years, but he did not seek re-appointment at the annual meeting of the N.Z.B.A. in Dunedin last week. The new selection panel is Kerry Clark (Wellington), who is the convener and he will manage the national side for the next two years, Stan Seear (Dunedin) and John Malcolm (Auckland). After the Cambridge trials the five players for Aberdeen will be named. From the five will be taken four who will make up the New Zealand team to play a test against England in Auckland in November.

The fifth player will be joined by another, wxo will

not necessarily be from the 10 invited to Cambridge, to contest an international pairs tournament in Hong Kong at the same time as the test against England. The five chosen for Edinburgh will comprise the New Zealand team to play a test series against Australia in Timaru early in April, next year. Mr Clark said yesterday that the selectors would obviously be looking for bowlers who could handle slow greens at Aberdeen and such conditions would be simulated at Cambridge. The tests against England and Australia, he said, would give a good build-up for the world event, and enable combinations to be forged.