Parnis gives 2010 world champion a hard time

The 2011 World Bowls Singles World Cup, held at the Warilla Club in NSW, Australia, this month, were arguably the toughest since their inception in 2004.

Twenty-six nations took part, including Malta who won silver in the juniors last year thanks to Brendan Aquilina.

The game is following in the footsteps of other popular sports such as cricket and soccer as traditionally-strong lawn bowls nations now find themselves challenged by newcomers such as Japan, Hong Kong and the Philippines.

This came about after World Bowls started offering free development programmes to any country that requested its assistance – including Malta. Sadly, to say, it appears that our country never took the World Bowls’ offer seriously enough.

To say that our three Maltese bowlers, Shaun Parnis, Aquilina and Carmen Spiteri, gave their best would be an understatement.

It should be borne in mind that these players and the Malta Lawn Bowls Association have not received any financial assistance from the Maltese authorities to take part in this tournament.

Our players did not have sufficient funds to pay their Australian coach. Individually, they all missed 12 working days’ wages – they had to pay for their meals and in Spiteri’s case, she had to pay for her own return airfares, as she lives in Victoria.

Poor Spiteri suffered a double whammy! Her return flight to Melbourne was delayed by 24 hours – hence additional expenses for her.

But, how did the Maltese players fare at the World Cup?

As luck would have it, Parnis’s first-round match in the men’s singles was against last year’s world champion Leif Selby who, incidentally, was playing at his home club of Warilla.

Parnis quickly sent a clear message to all other competitors who had to play against Australian Selby, that the 2010 world cham-pion is beatable.

Parnis eventually lost the match but held Selby to a 6-6 draw in the second set. This was no mean feat and to me it meant that World Bowls were correct when they accepted the Maltese player to compete in the Champion of Champions tournament in Hong Kong, in November.

Considering that Parnis beat Ireland’s James Talbot, who won this year’s tournament, is proof enough that Maltese lawn bowlers in Australia deserve the financial backing of Kunsill Malti għall-iSport.

Parnis can hold his head high as he has defeated two world champions so far – Safuan Said, of Malaysia, and Talbot.

He was seeded eighth in his section and finished in the same place.

In women’s singles, Spiteri’s biggest win was against the South African competitor in two straight sets. Once again, Spiteri beat her friend Metta Jennison, of Thailand, whom she had defeated at the Rosehill Exhibition Games last year.

Spiteri also registered wins over bowlers from China and Singapore in Warwilla.

Aquilina, a silver medal winner at last year’s World Cup, defeated and finished ahead of his New Zealand counterpart who won gold last year.

Aquilina was seeded sixth in his division and finished in fourth place, narrowly missing the semi-finals. There were no quarter-final play-offs.

Aquilina has a bright future ahead of him. His potential was there for all to see when he had the better of Ireland’s Gary Kelly who won the silver medal.

The Malta Lawn Bowls Association is presently at a crossroads.

Very often, we observe that our players get somewhat disheartened when, year after year, they fork out huge amounts of money out of their own pockets to represent Malta in international tournaments.

It makes you wonder what makes these players carry on.

Loyalty to their country, I suppose. True, but loyalty should be from both sides. What happened to the Greater Malta ideology?

Standings
Men’s overall league: 1. Ireland, 2. Scotland, 3.Australia, 4. Japan. (Malta finished 15 out of 23 countries).
Women’s singles: 1. New Zea-land, 2. Guernsey, 3. Scotland. (Malta 16th).
Junior singles: 1. Australia, 2. Scotland, 3. South Africa, 4. Japan, 5. Ireland, 6. Guernsey, 7. Malta.