Bowls: Brassey walks out on Auckland

By LINDSAY KNIGHT

Rowan Brassey, a living legend of Auckland bowls, is to quit representing the centre because of a disagreement with officials over the way an interclub competition has been run.

Brassey confirmed yesterday that he had made himself unavailable for Auckland as a result of his dissatisfaction over the way conditions had been altered for this season's sevens competition to determine the club for the national playoffs late next month.

Brassey's concerns are shared by his Avondale club and Glen Eden, another club involved in the competition playoffs.

It is understood that in leaving Auckland and representing another centre, Brassey will be followed by his young clubmate Jamie Hill, whom he has skipped to the last two national championship fours titles.

Brassey said his problems with Auckland stemmed from a late decision to add another round-robin in the New Year to the club competition.

Originally it was to have been concluded before Christmas and that had been published in the centre's handbook.

The extra round-robin meant the playoffs were altered to February 6 and then to February 13, after it had been pointed out that on Waitangi Day Brassey and Hill would be in Australia representing New Zealand in the transtasman series.

But just two days before the February 13 playoffs at the Glen Eden club, the date was again switched to last Sunday because the other clubs involved in the semifinals, Carlton and Rawhiti, had players affected by work commitments.

Brassey said neither he nor Hill could play then because of commitments made weeks ago to an Australian tournament.

Carlton and Rawhiti played last Sunday. Carlton won and thus appeared to have won the right to be Auckland's representative at the national club event.

Both Avondale and Glen Eden have rejected playing on another date because they say the tournament conditions provided for a blind draw rather than an arbitrary decision on which sides met for each semifinal.

There had also been a suggestion that because of the impasse a solution would be to determine the Auckland winner by the toss of a coin.

Brassey said yesterday that would have been "even more unsatisfactory and unprofessional".

The former world champion has had a long and generally incident-free association with Auckland for about 25 years.

He has won 13 centre titles and been a centre representative since his junior days in the late 1970s.

But he seems happy, while retaining his Avondale membership, to link with a new centre for representative purposes.

He said yesterday that he had close contacts in other centres, notably Counties, North Harbour, Thames Valley (where his Avondale clubmate Ross Haresnape is now a representative) and even in Wellington.

He had consulted Bowls New Zealand and was satisfied that his chances of remaining a national representative would not be compromised by a switch of centres.

There were plenty of precedents for players switching centres, Haresnape being one, and many of the current New Zealand team were based in Australia.

Auckland Bowls chairman Kevin Hickland declined to comment on Brassey's pending switch of centres or on the controversy over the competition playoffs.