New Zealand have retained the Henselite Trophy by beating Australia 38-28, in the one-off test at Mount Maunganui on Saturday afternoon.
Going into the final session the host country were ahead 29-25 and in a tense afternoon managed to extend their lead with the Mat Blacks calling on all their experience in the face of a strong Australian challenge.
Overall New Zealand won the men's and women's singles, women's pairs, men's and women's triples and the mixed 8-bowl pairs. Australia took out the men's and women's fours, mixed fours, men's pairs and mixed 6-bowl pairs.
The most successful players, with two medals each were Teri Anderson and Ashley Diamond from New Zealand and Tony Simpson and Simon Zaporozec from Australia.
New Zealand picked up the first Australasian medal to be decided on the final morning of the one-off indoor bowls test against Australia in Mount Maunganui on Saturday.
Singles player Ashley Diamond (Canterbury), beat Arthur Finch of Australia 27-14, in their third game, giving Diamond a 2-1 win over Finch.
However Australia responded with the next two medals, to their women's fours, who beat New Zealand 15-11 in the final game, and their men's fours who edged out New Zealand 16-5 in their third encounter.
That brought the medal tally, with one session to go five medals each.
The final medal of the test match, for the men's triples, went to New Zealand.
Australasian Medals:
New Zealand 6 (Women's Singles - Teri Anderson; Women's Pairs - Fiona Wilson, Teri Anderson; Women's Triples - Lois Randall, Linda McCurdy, Denise Clarkson; Men's Singles - Ashley Diamond, Mixed 8-bowl Pairs - Ashley Diamond, Sheree Holmes; Men's Triples - John Zittersteijn, Grant Rayner, Paul Smith)
Australia 5 (Women's Fours - Monika Korn, Meredith Norton, Julie Zaporozec, Jodie Jones; Men's pairs - Tony Simpson, Simon Zaporozec; Men's Fours - Tony Simpson, Chris Price, Darren Vos, Simon Zaporozec; Mixed Fours - David Blyth, Ian Ogilvie, Caralyn Walsh, Barbara Hill, Mixed 6-bowl Pairs - Ian Ogilvie, Jodie Jones ).
