Foster, 18, played lead in the four and Trowell, who turns 18 on Tuesday, was lead in the triple.
The four won their series 13-17, 19-11, 16-9, and each player received a medal.
The triple lost theirs 8-24, 13-19, 30-16 and, while they did not receive a medal, their victory in the last game contributed to the overall team win.
Foster and Trowell share a set of grandparents (Bruce and Kaye Easton), their mothers are sisters (Karyn, married to Mike Foster, and Jenny, married to Malcolm Trowell) and both have a younger sibling showing promise in the code (Dylan Foster and Kayla Trowell). All these people can play a decent game of indoor bowls.
Family and friends have played a big part in their development in the sport and in their desire to stay in it.
Bruce and Kaye Easton introduced Matthew to indoor bowls by taking him to a club night.
“I would have been about 12,” Foster said.
“At first it was just something I did with family, and it meant I could stay up late.
“The game just grew on me. It's quite a mentally challenging sport. When you play the whole day it's mentally draining to stay focused all the time.
“The other thing I like is, now that I'm a bit more competitive I go out of town and meet people of all ages all over the country and make friendships that I hope will last the rest of my life.”
In 2020, Foster became the first indoor bowler from the Poverty Bay-East Coast centre to win the national junior singles title. In 2021, Trowell became the second. In 2019, they'd been national one-to-five-year champion pair.
Foster plays cricket in summer and has played football in winter, although that has fallen away because winter is the indoor bowls season. He enjoyed the interisland indoor bowls test match experience and hopes to repeat it. Longer term, his goal is to represent New Zealand.
But with the words “indoor bowls” and “professional” seldom appearing in the same sentence, he is attending the Tairāwhiti campus of the Eastern Institute of Technology doing the Bachelor of Business course and “going down the accounting road at the moment”.
Foster wanted to thank his family and friends for their support, and the Cosmopolitan indoor bowls club and the Poverty Bay-East Coast centre for their guidance, encouragement and support.
Trowell was “about 10” when his father Malcolm — a well-performed player on the competitive stage — took him along to indoor bowls during the school holidays when they were living in Taupō.
“I kept turning up, and fell in love with it,” Nathan Trowell said.
He met people of all sorts of backgrounds and ages, and enjoyed the strategy of the game.
“I guess it's about reading ahead and thinking if you play a run shot and hit this bowl, where are things going to end up?”
He, too, plays football and it might have to give way to indoor bowls, at least for a while.
He is serious about his cricket, though, and is still considering whether it can co-exist with lawn bowls in summer.
Trowell enjoyed the interisland test. The competition was “intense”.
Indoor bowls in Gisborne was strong for the size of the district, and the number of young players was encouraging.
“When I started playing, in Taupō , I was one of only two juniors,” Trowell said.
“I was about 11 when we moved back to Gisborne, and we had about eight juniors.”
Now indoor bowls was gaining ground among young people.
“Ilminster Intermediate is a good example. They get 20 to 25 a year starting the game.”
Indoor bowls was not really incorporated in high school sports programmes, but clubs — such as the Cosmopolitan, to which he belongs — and the Poverty Bay-East Coast centre were active in promoting the game to that age group.
At senior level this year, Poverty Bay had come second to Waikato in their Paterson Trophy group, with Hawke's Bay, Tauranga and Bay of Plenty in their wake.
In the past, Poverty Bay had usually been last; in recent years, they had been fourth or third. Second place indicated significant improvement.
Exposure to outside competition was the most likely explanation.
With three generations of his extended family playing indoor bowls in Gisborne, Trowell could just as easily be playing against them as alongside them.
“In a way, they're the hardest to play, but at the same time you know what you're coming up against, so you can be better prepared,” he said.
“It's tough, but I like the competition.”
A Year 13 student at Gisborne Boys' High School, Trowell plans to study health science at the Auckland University of Technology.
“I'm thinking of going down a sports pathway, as a physio or even in psychology,” he said.
Trowell has been contacted by people in the Auckland indoor bowls scene about playing for them next year.
When he makes the move north, he can look back on a solid foundation of support from family, club and centre.
He made special mention of Poverty Bay-East Coast centre stalwart David Lynn for “organising stuff” and being a great role model.
INDOOR BOWLS
Poverty Bay-East Coast indoor bowlers Matthew Foster and Nathan Trowell made their North Island debuts in the interisland test in Upper Hutt.
The North Island retained the Kevin Eddy Memorial Trophy by beating the South Island 28-20 last weekend.
The teams were made up of 10 men and 10 women divided into men’s and women’s singles, pairs, triples and fours.
Foster, 18, was lead for the four, with Wayne Tough (Upper Hutt) at two, Jason Parker (Counties) at three and Ali Wilson (North Taranaki) the skip.
They lost their first game 17-13 after three hours of play but won their second 19-11 and their third 16-9 to earn medals.
Trowell, who turns 18 on Tuesday, led for the triple, with Kyle Waldron (North Wellington) at two and Tim Veale (Manawatu) the skip.
They lost the first game 24-8 and the second, 19-13. Although that meant they had lost the match, they emphatically won the third game, 30-16, and so contributed to the overall team victory.
Matthew’s parents, Karyn and Mike
Foster, and Nathan’s parents, Jenny and Malcolm Trowell, travel the country in support of their sons, while the grandparents tune in to social media sites to watch livestreaming of events.
North Island team manager Barry Chapman, one of three selectors of the team, said Foster and Trowell showed a remarkable appreciation and understanding of the game of bowls.
This year, with several players unavailable because of their selection for the national team to play Australia, the selectors took the opportunity to pick new players with a view to building depth in the player base.
“Matthew and Nathan have shown in their efforts to date that they have the skills and ability to compete with the best of our players,” Chapman said.
“I believe that these two players have a great future in the game and will achieve many successes as they follow their journey with indoor bowls.”
