Trowell makes NZ selection

Nathan Trowell has been selected for the New Zealand Mat Blacks indoors bowls team and will be playing in Pukekohe against Australia in May of next year.Picture supplied.

Gisborne’s Nathan Trowell has been selected for the New Zealand indoor bowls team — “the Mat Blacks” — to play Australia at Pukekohe in May next year.

Trowell is one of seven new caps in the seven-man/seven-woman team named for the 25th Henselite Trophy biennial transtasman test match.

He has been chosen to play lead in the men’s triples and fours.

The match will be played at the Pukekohe Cosmopolitan Club from Thursday to Saturday, May 9 to 11.

Trowell’s selection in the national team was foreshadowed by his form at the indoor bowls national championships in New Plymouth during June.

Nathan Trowell — 18 at the time and attending only his second national championships — was awarded the Robertson Trophy for player of the tournament.

He had started the week by reaching the semifinals of the open singles and finished it with selection — along with cousin Matthew Foster — in the North Island team to play the South Island. In between those two feats, Nathan and his father Mal Trowell won the open pairs and then joined with Nathan’s cousins Matthew and Dylan Foster to win the Stoneham Shield for the open fours.

Nathan is studying health science at the Auckland University of Technology, and in the team announcement he is listed as coming from Auckland, but his game was developed in Gisborne.

He was about 10 when his father took him along to indoor bowls during the school holidays when they were living in Taupō.

He is from a family steeped in indoor bowls. He, younger sister Kayla, and cousins Matthew and Dylan Foster share a set of grandparents (indoor bowlers Bruce and Kaye Easton), and their mothers (Jenny Trowell and Karyn Foster) are sisters.

Poverty Bay-East Coast Indoor Bowls Association vice-president David Lynn said Nathan Trowell’s selection was “absolutely awesome”.

“He is a multi-talented sportsman,” he said.

“No matter what he did in sport, he would be good at it.

“He has 24 centre titles in Gisborne. Four of them are gold-star status. He needs five . . . I’d expect him to win the fifth and earn his gold star when he plays a tournament here at some stage.”

While Trowell had plenty of natural talent, he had received lots of advice and encouragement from his father Mal, himself a national champion, Lynn said.

“Mal has been a big mentor . . . teaching him the game, advising him on attitude, everything. He’d be there watching, saying ‘Trust yourself’.”

The New Zealand indoor bowls team to play Australia in May next year —

Women: Sheree Holmes (Upper Hutt), Denise Clarkson (Hutt Valley), Shelley Jacombs (Hutt Valley), Kylie Gould (Canterbury), Jess Moffat (North Wellington), Annelies Baker (Waikato) and Alana Moffit (South Otago).

Men: Paul Smith (Tauranga), Marcus Trlin (Hutt Valley), Simon Thomas (team captain, Ashburton), Michael Lawson (Ashburton), Daniel French (Otago), Nathan Trowell (Auckland/Gisborne) and Shaun Blackbourn (Waikato).

Reserves: Graham Low (Southland) and Rochelle Cameron (Counties).

Manager: Wayne Tough (Upper Hutt).