Bowls: O'Connor knocks fours-first format

Bowls New Zealand should return the national championships to the format that worked successfully in the past, according to former international Danny O'Connor.

"The championships used to be the most prestigious event in the country. Why do they have to keep tinkering with it?" said O'Connor, who is attending his 28th national event.

O'Connor was critical of the decision to start the tournament with the fours instead of the traditional singles.

He said most players from the North Island came to Dunedin as a four, and also played in the singles and pairs. But the fours were usually the main focus of the trip south.

O'Connor, who has won eight national titles, believes the singles are not the most important event for most bowlers, but they play in it as a warm-up for the pairs and the fours.

O'Connor plays for the Auckland Okahu Bay club and estimates it costs about $1500 to come to Dunedin for the championships.

"It costs a lot and we want to get value for money," O'Connor said.

"When we first come down here we don't want to be thrown in the deep end."

He said that nearly 90 per cent of the bowlers playing in the championships did not expect to win titles.

They just come to play bowls and have the opportunity of playing against the best bowlers in the country.

When the national championships were in their heyday there were always four days of section play in the fours over 25 ends.

Bowlers like the long game of fours and the chance to play against the best in the country.

"Four days of section play would be ideal, but I would settle for three as long as it is over 25 ends," O'Connor said.

"When they played two games of fours a day over 25 ends everyone was happy."

O'Connor said there were 179 withdrawals from the singles when they were played last at the Wellington tournament in 1998.

O'Connor also feels that Bowls New Zealand should go back to the old format of playing the championships at the main centres of Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin on a four-yearly cycle.

"Everyone would then know where they would be playing in 20 years' time," O'Connor said.

He said the top bowlers would always keep coming to the national championships, no matter what the format was, but "we have to get the run-of-the-mill bowlers to play and make it appealing to them."

Bowls Dunedin president Trish Seaman said her centre decided the format.

However, it was decided before her administration was elected last September and it was too late to change anything.

"I personally would have liked the singles to have been held first," Seaman said. "We did not learn from the mistakes Auckland made when it ran the tournament last year."

- NZPA