The New Zealand men’s triple bowls team sealed a place in the quarter-finals with two contrasting wins today.
Mike Nagy, Paul Girdler and Ali Forsyth were in dominating form in their first outing, beating Niue 30-8.
However, it was a different story when they faced Canada and the New Zealanders were mighty relieved to get home 16-13.
Skip Forsyth was left scratching his head afterwards.
“The one against Canada wasn’t that flash,” he said. “We were scrambling around the whole way and we were lucky to get there. To be fair, the Canadians played well, but we just could not get going.
“I suppose if you have to scrap and you still win, that’s a good sign.”
The triple are assured of progressing into post-section play, but have one pool match remaining, against Namibia tomorrow.
Meanwhile 2014 Games women’s singles champion Jo Edwards is having a torrid time defending her crown.
After two hard-fought wins on the opening day, Edwards went down 21-17 to Englishwoman Katherine Rednall in her first outing today.
It was a seesawing match – Edwards trailed 1-3, levelled at 7-7, led 10-19, trailed 13-16, levelled at 16-16, then trailed 17-19.
The Brisbane-based Edwards bounced back immediately, beating Fijian Litia Tikoisuva of Fiji 21-10.
Tomorrow she faces unbeaten Malaysian Emma Saroji.
Edwards did not feel she struck her best form against Rednall. “To be honest I think I was lucky to get as close as 21-17,” she said. “I never picked the weight. The ones I felt were good were heavy and the ones that felt heavy were good. It’s hard to get into into the old noggin sometimes.”
She said the match against Tikoisuva, a must win, was nip and tuck for a while, but that she came on well near the end.
Edwards’ pool is tight. She and Rednall have had one loss and Saroji is unbeaten. Edwards feels she needs to win, which would then force a countback on differential. “At least I’m still in it after today.”