2025 Trans Tasman preview
For the first time in twelve months, the Right at Home Jackaroos will be back in action on the international stage as the age old rivalry with the New Zealand Blackjacks rekindles for the 2025 Trans Tasman.
Naenae is set to stage the coveted competition once again with the format to remain the same as last year’s tournament, which Australia claimed 4-1.
Like 2024, five trophies will be contested with the team that holds the most at the conclusion of the three-day event to be crowned the champion.
In the open women’s competition, Dawn Hayman will take the singles mantle against 2023 World Champion in Tayla Bruce as she looks to continue the form that saw her crowned as the 2024 Female Bowler of the Year and International Female Bowler of the Year at Bowls Australia’s (BA) Awards Night.
Hayman will skip the pairs with her World Bowls Championships teammate and Commonwealth Games gold medallist in Kristina Krstic, with the duo set to front up against Briar Atkinson and Selina Goddard.
The triples will see Chloe Stewart and Natasha Van Eldik play as the front two for World Championship winning skipper in Kelsey Cottrell as the Australian trio take on Leeane Poulson, Bruce and Val Smith, all of whom represented the Blackjacks in the final of the same discipline on the Gold Coast in 2023.
Fours will see Krstic as the lead with Stewart, Van Eldik and Cottrell to follow as the quartet take on Poulson, Atkinson, Goddard and Smith.
The open men’s competition will see two-time Commonwealth Games winner Aaron Wilson back in the singles seat to face against longtime rival Shannon McIlroy.
Wilson, like Hayman, has secured the pairs skipper position on top of his singles duties and will team up with his Gold Coast 2023 partner in Aaron Teys as they take on McIlroy and another familiar face in Ali Forsyth.
Triples action will see Lee Schraner make his long-awaited return to representative duties as he takes the position as second with Corey Wedlock as lead and Carl Healey as skip, with the unit set to contend with Tony Grantham, Finbar McGuigan and Keanu Darby.
The same trio will reunite in the fours with Teys joining as the number two and Schraner switching places with Healey to skipper the team that will front up against Grantham, McGuigan, Darby and Forsyth.
Australia’s Para squad will see Serena Bonnell, Louise Hoskins, James Reynolds, Damien Delgado, Jacky Hudson (Rob Hudson director) and Jake Fehlberg (Cody Fehlberg director) up against Teri Blackbourn, Julie O’Connell, Kurt Smith, Mark Noble, Sue Curran (Margaret Davies director) and Kerrin Wheeler (Colin Wheeler director) in a tantalising matchup.
The Australia A women’s team will see 2023 Australian Open singles champion Cassandra Millerick in the blue ribboned discipline where she will take on Lisa Prideaux, the mother of Emerging Jackaroo Beau.
It will be an all New South Wales team in the pairs as Brianna Smith leads for Jamie-Lee Worsnop against Kim Hemingway and Sarah Scott, while Millerick will lead up for Kylie Lavis and Jessie Cottell in the triples against Caitlin Thomson, Prideaux and Natasha Russell.
The fours team will consist of Smith, Lavis, Cottell and Worsnop with the quartet set to meet Hemingway, Thomson, Russell and Scott.
Following a scintillating World Bowls Junior Indoor Championships in December, Kane Nelson will take the reigns in singles play against Aiden Takarua, who is in magnificent form himself following lengthy campaigns at the World Champion of Champions and Oceania Challenge.
Fresh off his remarkable BPL20 in November, Nathan Black will look to replicate that form leading for Ben Twist in the pairs against Robbie Bird and Takarua, while Nick Cahill, Cody Packer and Nelson will form the triples lineup as they face Hamish Kelleher, Kaylin Huwyler and Blake Signal.
Packer will jump into the lead position in the fours, ahead of Cahill, Black and Twist, with the quartet set to meet Bird, Kelleher, Huwyler and Signal.
The 2025 Trans Tasman runs from January31-February 2, 2025 at the Naenae Bowling Club with live streaming on Bowls New Zealand’s YouTube channel. View the event programme and schedule HERE.
