Bowls: O'Connor set to join exclusive club with 10th title in sight

Peter Belliss' four will face a tough team in the national final today.

Danny O'Connor, one of New Zealand's evergreen bowlers, gave himself another chance yesterday at the national bowls championships at Browns Bay of securing his 10th national title and joining Nick Unkovich and Gary Lawson with a bar to their gold stars.

O'Connor, who last weekend was runner-up in the pairs with Richard Girvan, yesterday qualified for his second final when he led for a powerful four skipped by Peter Belliss.

Should the Belliss line-up, which also includes Lance Tasker and Girvan, win today O'Connor's title will come almost 40 years after he won his first as part of Unkovich's Okahu Bay fours and 10 years since his last.

However, the Belliss four will face formidable opposition today in the composite four skipped by Raymond Martin, a 24-year-old from Wellington's Victoria club.

His line-up, which has clubmate Richard Corry leading and two Auckland 21-year-olds in the middle - Monte Pawa and Rory Soden - continued a fine tournament by ousting the strong Rob Ashton-skipped four 19-17 in the semifinals.

Belliss, too, faced a competitive semifinal against a Marlborough composite four skipped by Sanjeh Prasad from Blenheim, and with two other youngsters in the middle - Kaikoura's Scott Mansfield and Josh Boyd, 21 and 22 respectively.

The Belliss four eventually won 16-12 but Belliss admitted afterwards: "We never felt safe at any stage."

The Marlborough side's quality was shown in the quarter-finals with a 26-9 win over a mainly solid Orewa line-up skipped by Australian-based Mike Nagy, who at Dunedin last year won pairs and fours titles.

Belliss and Martin also scored crucial quarter-final wins over accomplished opposition.

Martin's line-up, thanks to a marvellous shot by Martin to score a crucial three on one of the final ends, ended the hopes of Gary Lawson and Mike Kernaghan, and Belliss, benefiting from a six on one end, eliminated Mike Galloway.

Should Belliss win again today it will be his seventh national title and he could be joined by his sister-in-law Dot Belliss, who was in a Wanganui composite four which made today's women's final with a 23-15 win over Kristin Stampa (Hawera).

The women's final will be a clash between the sport's demographic extremes, Belliss playing with Cynthia Adams, Glenis Pidwell and Pamela Burgess.

Three of these players are entitled to their gold cards and between them the four total 70 centre titles.

Their opponents today will be from a much younger age group skipped by Petone's Tanya Wheeler and with two, Raglan's Ashleigh Jeffcoat and Rachel Jelley, aged 15 and 22 respectively.

Though playing out of Dunedin, Jelley - the grandniece of the great athletics coach Arch - is a product of Westlake Girls High School and Mairangi Bay, returning to Auckland to study for a PhD in chemistry.

In the semifinals, the Wheeler four beat opposition with an even younger average age - Amy McIlory, Gemma Watts and Selena Goddard, who were in last year's winning four, and 19-year-old Katelyn Inch.