Mixed fortunes at the bowls

New Zealand had a mixed afternoon in the lawn bowls.

Most surprisingly, the men’s triple of Ali Forsyth, Andrew Kelly and Mike Galloway went down to Malta 22-12. Malta had earlier been pummelled by Scotland.

The New Zealanders fought hard to get back to 12-12, but then on consecutive ends conceded two, five and three, which spelt curtains for them. The triple thus ended the day with a win and a loss.

The men’s pair of Tony Grantham and Shannon McIlroy beat Niue handily 23-14 to get their campaign off to a good start.

The women’s four, with experienced Val Smith as skip, supported by Selina Goddard, Nicole Toomey and Tayla Bruce, had to work hard but eventually got past Wales 18-12.

There wasn’t such good news for Mark Noble and Graham Skellern in the para pairs and they lost their second consecutive match, going down 19-11 to England.