Canterbury has scooped the pool winning both the 54th national final of the New Zealand Indoor Bowls Mixed Fours and the third final of the New Zealand Mixed Pairs at the Western Hall, Portage Road, New Lynn, Auckland on Saturday.
The Canterbury four of Chris Matthews, Rob Osborne, Deanne Osborne and Donna Matthews won five and drew one of their seven games to win with eleven points. Counties represented by Jason Parker, Brian Macdonald, Cindy White and Karen Watson were second with three wins and three draws with nine points. The event was played on a round robin principle and each of the teams had won both their district and one of eight zone finals.
All of the Canterbury four won their first mixed fours title. Donna Matthews has only been playing bowls for three years while the rest are all former South Island representatives,
Meanwhile Canterbury's Simon Thomas and Kathleen Curtis won the Mixed Pairs title with five wins and one draw with 11 points from North Taranaki's Grant l'Ami and Michelle Watt who recorded five wins for 10 points.
Going into the last round of pairs both Thomas and l'Ami had ten points each with Thomas slightly ahead 39.5 to 38 on ends. In this round both teams were struggling but Thomas won the title when he removed his opponent's bowl to score six shots with his last bowl to draw the game against Colin Williams and Jenny Stockford, Auckland while l'Ami went down to Sheree Holmes and Ashley Diamond, Upper Hutt Valley 4-13.
Thomas won the Open Triples at this year's Summerset National Championships to go with the two he won at Taupo in 2004. This was Curtis's first national title.
