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Regional | Bowls

Ngāti Porou bowler's 'unfinished business'

"There's unfinished business for me" says Ngāti Porou bowler Shannon McIlroy who is attending his third Commonwealth Games in the hope of claiming his first medal.

The world champ missed a podium finish in the 2010 games in Delhi and 2014 in Glasgow but McIlroy says he's ready to make a comeback on the Gold Coast.

McIlroy says, “There's a little bit of unfinished business for me and I've got to be careful with that. I've got to make sure that I don't let that sort of emotion get the better of me.”

It's one of the few international events he has yet to medal in.  This time he is determined for gold and he believes he has a good chance.

“The World Championships is probably the hardest thing to win out of any event we have.  To win one of them is every bowler's dream, so for me, I can look at myself and go right, I'm in the mix.  I'm thereabouts amongst the top four players in the world.”

Following his success at the 2016 World Championships and Multi Nationals where he claimed gold in both events for singles, McIlroy believes he has an even bigger target on his back this year.

“I've won every international singles event since then in the major ones, so I'll have a bit of a target on my back because results-wise I've been going pretty good in that discipline.”

McIlroy and the ten-strong bowling squad hope to improve on New Zealand’s three medal hoard from four years ago.

The squad includes women’s singles champion Jo Edwards as well as the experienced Blake Signal, Paul Girdler, Mandy Boyd, Val Smith and Ali Forsyth.