Bowls: Taradale RSA four among Bay's top hopes

FANCIED FOUR: Taradale RSA's four of Robyn Wallace, Dot Palmer, Ngaire McKinley and Merle McLean will be among the Bay's best hopes next week. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

HAWKE'S BAY bowler Robyn Wallace has always been one to shun the limelight.

The former long-term Gisborne East Coast Centre representative and multiple centre title winner, who moved to Taradale from Wairoa with her husband Bruce five years ago, prefers to let her Omarunui four do the talking on the green. The quartet, also consisting of number three Dot Palmer, number two Ngaire McKinley and lead Merle McLean are as humble and unassuming as one could get.

They will be the sole Taradale RSA team in the 28th annual North Island Chartered Clubs Women's Fours tournament which will be played from Monday until Thursday in the Bay. Bowls Taradale is the headquarters and greens at Omarunui, Havelock North and Kia Toa will also be used in the event which will see 96 teams battle for a slice of $6400.

Considering their recent form and the fact they finished second in the 2013 edition of the tournament in Johnsonville, Wallace and co have to be ranked among the Bay's fancied teams for the title. Wallace, who will be playing in this event for the fourth time, politely played down her team's chances.

"There are a lot of strong teams from all around," Wallace said.

They play section play at Havelock North on Monday and Kia Toa on Tuesday. It will be their first outing at Havelock North this season.

The top 16 teams will qualify for championship play.

A former Bay of Plenty representative and 2009 National Clubs Pairs title winner, Palmer, arrived at Omarunui around the same time as Wallace. They joined up with two promising junior club players in former farmer and clerk McKinley and former golfer McLean.

This year they have won the prestigious Rotorua Fours, Hawke's Bay Open Fours and the National Clubs Fours in Hamilton back in March. Wallace and McKinley were joint winners of the Bowls Hawke's Bay Player of the Year award earlier this year. While all four have all had serious injury or health problems recently their teamwork, determination, and comradeship has always brought them back to be a competitive force again.

Both McLean and Palmer have had knee surgery and there was no better indication of Palmer's commitment to the team when she made sure her operation was done in the off-season.

Their toughest competition in section play is expected to come from a New Plymouth team skipped by Val McEldowney, a Hamilton WMC team skipped by Greta Asplin and Bowls Taradale's Louise Fitness.

The Levin skip who beat Wallace and co in the 2013 final, Dot Collis, is back again but Wallace is unsure whether there is a chance they could meet again or whether or not she still has the same time.

"We prefer to take one game at a time," Wallace said.

Defending champions Alison Rennie, Clara Bowman, Jill Fraser and Hetty Bolscher of the Pukekohe Cosmopolitan Club will attempt to retain their title. Last year's runners-up, Margaret McCallum, Joy Orr, Bev van Wynbergen and Lorraine Crofskey of the Inglewood Club will also be in action again with last year's third-equal placed teams Bev Corbett, Katrina Ensor, Carol Cox and Debbie White of Matamata and Mount Maunganui's Marie Brown, Chris Topp, Merele Hoare and Sylvia Motion.