There's a sports team in Wanganui in need of a challenge ? well, a workout anyway.
Wanganui's highly-successful indoor bowls team is a month away from the national Welch Trophy final, and has basically run out of competitions to play to keep sharp.
Wanganui made history at Upper Hutt on Saturday by
knocking defending national centre champion Upper Hutt Valley out of this year's event 30-26.
That put Wanganui into the national final for the first time in the centre's history. Their opposition will be Waikato (beat Roskill and Districts 32-16) and Otago (beat Canterbury 30-26), and the contest is in New Lynn on October 7 and 8.
Tomorrow night's Murray Cup final is virtually the finish of the Wanganui club programme because interclub has been wiped through apparent lack of interest this season. Club nights remain the only local play.
Wanganui team captain Kevin Coombe suggests that couldn't have happened at a worse time.
"I'm confident we can win the final," Coombe said. "There's nobody in there (Waikato and Otago) that are better than us. Player for player Upper Hutt probably had better players than these two teams.
"But what I'm worried about is the lack of play between now and then ? although that may well be the problem for the other two centres as well, I don't really know.
"We will probably have to meet once a week and play between ourselves ? one doesn't have to keep going out and play, play and play at this time of the year. But it is a small problem."
But Coombe and team selector Noel Kenny are racking their brains trying how to do things properly.
Wanganui was represented by Craig Scrivener, Coombe, Gavin Scrivener, Brendon Kenny, Brent Biggar, Cary Pinker, Lindsay Bourne and Les Heywood.
Wanganui won all of their games of fours to give them a strong foundation to set up the win, although the singles matches did not go as well as expected immediately after.
The win was spearheaded by Cary Pinker who was unbeaten with four wins and two draws and Brent Biggar and Lindsay Bourne who each recorded five wins.
The No 2 team of Biggar, Pinker, Bourne and Heywood produced 18 of Wanganui's match points, with the No 1 team of the two Scriveners, Coombe and Kenny producing 12 points.
