Local teen bowler helps down Aussies | Canterbury Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Canterbury

The performance of the under-25 women provided the only highlight of last week's trans-Tasman bowls tests in Christchurch.

The women's development team won its series 3-0 ? and prominent in that was teenage Christchurch bowler Olivia Davids.

Davids played both the pairs and fours, helping the latter tie their series and the former having a win and two losses.

The 18-year-old had special reason to be pleased with the team's success, which showed New Zealand has some very promising younger female bowlers coming through.

She'd made two previous international appearances, losing twice to Australia in New Zealand under-18 teams.

"The team was real stoked," she said. "We were really pleased with the outcome ? I don't think going in that there were very high expectations for us."

The much more experienced Australians should have "beaten us by heaps," she said.

"But I think we put in the yards in the lead-up to the series."

Davids looks set for a big future in bowls. She was first coaxed to play by her grandmother as a 13-year-old at Oxford where there wasn't much for a teenager to do, and joined the Burnside club when she moved to town a couple of years later.

At Christchurch Girls' High School she won the New Zealand schoolgirls bowls twice before leaving to do a travel and tourism course last year.

That and her job this year at a hotel have prevented her playing centre events, but she plays interclub for Canterbury, which she joined this summer, on Saturdays.

This year she also attended her second nationals. In the singles she was eliminated by one of the visiting Malaysian international players, and in the pairs she and Aucklander Gemma Watts (who also played in the fours for the under-25s last week) bowed out in post-section by only one point to eventual winners Sharon Sims and Mary Campbell.

Under-25 coach Graeme Rees said his team's effort to beat the Aussies was absolutely superb, and all six players showed heaps of potential.

"Olivia's strength is her shot play," he said. "She plays at the back end ? she skipped the pair and played three in the four. You've got to get on well with other players there, which she does."

And Rees pointed out regular coaching was paying off for Davids.

In the lead-up to the test the bowlers had at least eight hours coaching a week, and followed gym programmes to be fit for long days on the greens.

The teenager was coached at Burnside by Cushla McGillivray, who is also well-known in golf circles, and she continued to guide her when Davids changed clubs.

McGillivray is also coaching Davids' Canterbury development team, which will play in the inter-zone tournament in Palmerston North at the end of the month.

It was important to have a coach who worked for the individual, and McGillivray had put a lot of time in with her, improving her technique and the playing of her shots, said Davids.

Naturally, Davids' goal is to eventually play for the New Zealand open team, and she also hopes to play in Australia for a while to develop her game.