Bowls: Hat-trick pair favoured to take men's bowls title

Gary Lawson, of Belfast bowling club. Photo / Natalie Slade

Wellington bowler Blake Signal and Canterbury partner Alvin Gardiner completed a notable hat-trick of wins yesterday to emerge as favourites at the Men's Open Bowls pairs final at the Hyundai National Championship.

At the Carlton-Cornwall club in Auckland, Signal and Gardiner came from a 11-5 deficit to eliminate an in-form Gary Lawson and his Auckland lead, Chris Le Lievre, in an outstanding quarter-final yesterday.

In a final-16 clash, Signal and Gardiner had eliminated two other internationals, Richard Girvan and Danny Delany, and on Saturday they pipped Aucklanders Petar Sain and Scott Cottrell.

In all three of those matches Signal decided the result with his last bowl, displaying an impressive calm as well as skilful drawing and accurate drives.

To win against Lawson, Signal had to drive out what would have been Lawson's winning-shot bowl with the scores tied at 14-all going into the last of the 18 ends. To win against Girvan in a match needing an extra end, Signal won with a draw shot.

Despite living in different cities, Signal and Gardiner, a 56-year-old prison officer with the build of a rugby prop, have played together at several New Zealand tournaments for the past six years and have an easy rapport.

Signal, 29, has been in national training squads but so far his only international honours have been with the national under-25 side. In the semifinals the pair will meet the Auckland father-and-son combination of Jamie and Neville Hill.

The other semifinalists will be Bay of Plenty's experienced Steve Beel, who was in the Girvan-skipped four which won the national title in Auckland in 2005, and his partner, West Coaster Shane Pascoe, and James Pugh, from Stoke in Nelson, and Henderson's Kerry Dye.

A notable feat yesterday came from North Harbour's Browns Bay club, which had four pairs, Tony Marinkovich and Brian Wilson, John Walker and Colin Rogan, Bruce Shand and Neil McMaster, and Ian Pyke and Richard Kimber in the last 16.

Only Marinkovich and Wilson, and Shand and McMaster made the quarter-finals, where they were well beaten by the Hills and by Beel and Pascoe.