Para triples bowlers into final

New Zealand’s open B6/B7/B8 triple cemented a place in the final of their bowls event when they beat England 18-11 today.

Bruce Wakefield, Barry Wynks and Mark Noble didn’t have things all their own way – at one stage they held a precarious 10-8 lead. But they tightened up when they needed to and proved too good in the end.

The result means that the New Zealanders play Australia in the final tomorrow. Australia beat South Africa in the other semi-final.

New Zealand beat England in a warm-up game, but lost to them in pool play, so both teams fancied their chances going into the semi-final.

Wynks and Noble have covered this territory before, taking silver in the same class in Glasgow in 2014.

Wakefield said it was good to turn the tables on England after the pool play result.

The New Zealand women’s triple of Tayla Bruce, Katelyn Inch and Mandy Boyd finished their pool play unbeaten after winning their final pool match against Wales 19-15. It was a close-run thing – Wales led 8-6, and only trailed 15-16.

In their evening quarter-final, the women’s triple weren’t able to continue their winning way and went down to Canada 18-16. At one point they trailed only 10-17, but their brave fightback fell just short.

The New Zealand men’s four of Mike Nagy, Blake Signal, Paul Girdler and Ali Forsyth handled Papua New Guinea well enough to win 20-12 in pool play. Later they backed up that performance in their final pool match by beating Canada 21-11 to remain unbeaten.