Bowls: Manager ready to quit

By TERRY MADDAFORD

Peter Kean was not mincing words when he said a gold and two bronze medals for the New Zealand men's team at World Bowls was not good enough.

Kean, who has managed the team since 1997, returned with most team members yesterday obviously disappointed that the team had not won the coveted Leonard Trophy as the world's top bowling nation.

"In the second week we won 40 of our first 42 matches but when the pressure came on we won only three of the last nine [in singles and fours]," said Kean.

"It was great to win gold in the triples and bronze in the pairs and fours - the players did really well - but we again fell at the last hurdle."

Of just as great concern was Kean's hint that he might call it quits and get out of the sport altogether.

"I'll probably not go back. Four years is a long time and I think I've got as close as I can," said Kean, who has a high-profile job as a company director for Lion Nathan.

But any hope he has of quietly fading away is unlikely to be met.

Bowls New Zealand chief executive Kerry Clark is adamant his association will do all it can to retain Kean and women's manager Adrienne Lambert.

"I can understand Peter's disappointment," said Clark. "One more win in either the singles or fours would have been enough to win the Leonard Trophy. It was so disappointing to trip at the last hurdle.

"After he has had time to reflect we will certainly be having discussions with him."

Clark is determined that the success of the men's and women's team, and Marlene Castle's win in the women's world indoor championships, will not be forgotten.

"We have a profile which we must now keep in front of the public," he said.

"In 1976 when South Africa won four golds at the men's and women's world championships, playing numbers in the republic doubled. We must get out and look to do the same.

"We need an extensive high-performance programme. We have plans to bring a team, or teams, here and George Shaw [former NZB chief executive and now with the English Bowling Board] wants a team in England next year.

"We are looking at taking 10 men and 10 women as part of the preparation for the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games."

Of more immediate concern is a fall-off in New Zealand Sports Foundation funding.

"We have dropped from $400,000 to $300,000, and in the last year, $105,000," Clark said.

"With the results we have achieved at these world championships we can expect increased funding."

Of the players who returned yesterday - Peter Belliss (regarded by many as the best player at the tournament with Scot Alex Marshall) went straight back to Australia - only Andrew Curtain, who led for the gold medal-winning triple and played in the singles, has any doubts on his international future.

"It is really up to my employers and my work situation," he said. "I told them this would be the last one. I pulled out of Hong Kong, the transtasman and Scotland but I don't want to be seen as picking and choosing where I play, although I feel I'm getting better and better.

"If this is to be the end then it could not have been better. People back here don't realise how big it is and what goes on on the green at this level."

Of Kean's contribution, Curtain said: "He was outstanding. We should have won the Leonard Trophy for him. I feel I let the team down with one bad day when I lost two games and dropped from first to fifth."