Bowls: Kernaghan gives up on Bowls NZ

By Graham Skellern

Mike Kernaghan, Bowls NZ director of development and a leading player, is packing up and returning to his hometown of Dunedin after becoming disillusioned with the slow progress in transforming the sport's structure.

The 43-year-old Kernaghan, a New Zealand and Auckland representative, left his job last Friday to concentrate on rekindling his playing career.

His goal is to make the five-strong national side for the world championships in South Africa in March.

Kernaghan had been finding it ever harder to operate within the sport's unwieldy national organisation.

"From a strategic planning weekend three years ago to now I don't think we have made any progress in getting the governance of the sport right.

"The fact that we still have 54 councillors who get to vote on the direction of the sport is ridiculous in today's age," said Kernaghan.

"Other sports have made the changes - such as golf, cricket, rugby, soccer and netball who have gone from where we are now to a small [national] executive to remain competitive in today's environment.

"Sport is a business and if bowls doesn't accept that and operate as such then we are doomed," warned Kernaghan, who first represented New Zealand in 1991 and became Bowls NZ's first fulltime development officer in July 1996.

Bowls was hit hard by the NZ Sports Foundation this week - its grant dropped from $303,740 last year to just $95,000, mainly as a result of the poor performances of the national teams at the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur.

A total of $75,000 was allocated to the Bowls Academy, and $20,000 for the Australia-NZ sports exchange programme. But there is no money for international travel or any personal grants. Last year, about $80,000 was handed out to international bowlers.

Bowls reaches an interesting stage in September when the councillors, men and women, vote on a new constitution at the annual meeting in Wellington.

They will decide whether to reduce the number of councillors to 27 (representing each centre) and replace the existing national executive with a slimmer board of seven directors, five appointed and two elected (the president and vice-president).

In effect, councillors are being asked to vote themselves out of a job.

"It is absolutely critical to the future of the sport to vote in the new constitution," said Kernaghan, who is the fourth staff member to leave the Bowls NZ head office over the past 12 months.

Twice in the past three years Kernaghan stepped down from the national squad because of the conflict with his being a national administrator.

After winning the Daewoo mixed open singles title and a new car last November, Kernaghan found that his competitive instincts resurfaced and he was recalled to the New Zealand team for the transtasman series against Australia in May.

Kernaghan, who won one centre title during his three seasons in Auckland, was selected in the latest national side for the Asian Pacific championships in Kuala Lumpur in September.

"With my moving on I can once again give a commitment to the playing side," said Kernaghan, who is well placed to make the world bowls side to be announced by the end of December.

He is one of 14 players asked to attend two trials in early October and early November.

Kernaghan, who has played for his country five times, will resume his representative career with his old centre, Dunedin, after taking up a new position as project manager with Sportsforce, which is financed by the Otago Community Trust.

He will work with five regional sports - athletics, hockey, squash, soccer and touch rugby - to develop new administration, coaching, refereeing and promotion initiatives.

Waikato and Bay of Plenty have already established similar Sportsforce development programmes.

In the meantime, the chief executive of Bowls NZ, Kerry Clark, is taking over one facet of Kernaghan's work - overseeing the national academy and high-performance squads.

And Bowls NZ is conducting interviews for a development officer to work in the promotional field involving schools, regional sports trusts, bowling centres and the Bowls Awareness campaign.