Coaching career rolls on

LEARNING CURVE: Ian Monaghan has 52 centre titles in the bag but could make an even bigger mark on the coaching front.PHOTOS/FILE

THE curriculum vitae of gun Masterton outdoor bowler Ian Monaghan continues to expand.

A headline grabber last year when he became the first Wairarapa player to secure 50 centre titles, Monaghan has since built that number to 52 with the possibility of least two more to come in 2015.

But as imposing as his playing record is, it could be as a coach where Monaghan makes his biggest stamp on the sport.

Bowls New Zealand's hierarchy have obviously been impressed with the progress he has made in that sphere through his appointment as co-coach of the New Zealand development squad to take on their Australian counterparts in the transtasman series in Christchurch in three tests on March 18, 19 and 20.

And before that Monaghan will fill a similar role for the North Island squad when they play the South Island in a two-day series at the Victoria Bowling Club in Wellington on February 21-22.

In each instance, Monaghan will be offering advice to some of the country's most promising players.

The women's and men's development teams are made up of three under-25 players and two under-18 players while the North Island team is part of a talent identification programme for future Black Jacks.

Monaghan sees his latest appointments as providing a royal opportunity to prove he is capable of taking the "next step up" on the coaching front.

"I guess it's all part of the learning curve. It's going to be a good challenge," he said.

Meanwhile on the Wairarapa bowling scene, it was Fiona Mancer from the Masterton club who won Bowls Wairarapa's open women's singles title finalised at the Masterton greens last Sunday.

And when Mancer, a fourth-year bowler who just happens to be coached by none other than Monaghan, beat Featherston's Dale Batty 21-11 in the decider it meant she had completed a clean sweep of the centre's open titles for the 2014-15 season, having already taken out the pairs with Judith Wyeth, the triples with Wyeth and Dorothy Christensen and the fours with Wyeth, Joy Gibbs and Christensen.

Mancer, who had not tasted success at centre level before this season, has been named as singles player in the Wairarapa senior women's squad but, while she is pleased to be given that opportunity, she says she prefers to play pairs or triples.

"I keep getting told I should focus on singles so that's where I play. I'm just happy to go wherever they want me," she said.

It was an all-Masterton affair in the final of the plate on Sunday with Brenda Whitehead beating Dorothy Christensen.