Club Maitland City and Lorn Park Bowling Club to host NSW Zone Championships

Club Maitland City and Lorn Park Bowling Club will host players from 16 Zones across NSW, with 12 players representing each zone.

The event is divided into two parts with the senior event starting from Tuesday, May 23 and the open event beginning on Saturday, May 27.

Both the open Inter-Zone Championships and the senior event run for three days. The Hunter region is called Zone Six and will host the annual event for the first time in 16 years.

Club Maitland City's Sports and Sponsorship Manager DJ Dilworth said the high profile event is an opportunity to showcase the city.

"It brings people to showcase Maitland, people that don't normally get to come to the area get to come and see it," he said.

"We're putting that much into sporting infrastructure in this space, it's just good for us to have that type of event in bowls as well.

"We've got the new sportsground, we've got the new netball courts, we've got the new athletic facility, we've already got a state-of-the-art hockey facility."

Some of the best players in Australia will be on show and the pathway event will act as a selection trial with players selected for the NSW team.

Mr Dilworth said the club had been busy in its preparations.

"Just making sure the club's neat and tidy...that we have the right amount of staff to look after the people, make sure the food's ready to go for everyone," he said.

"Making sure we've got enough volunteers to help out all the visitors around the place

"Just making sure we're on top of everything, making it as good an experience for the visitors as we can to showcase our club but also Maitland and the wider area."

Players qualify for the competition through selection at zone level with the championships held in four sections.

The top-two sides in each section qualify for the quarter-finals and then matches are played in knockout format through to the final.

Zone Two from Newcastle are the defending champions in the open event and Mr Dilworth expects them to be hard to beat once again.

He said playing on your home greens will also have its advantages for Zone Six.

"We've got a few players from our club playing and obviously they know the greens, they know the greens well," Mr Dilworth said.

"There's always an advantage to that because you get to play at that club a lot more regularly than what the travelers do."

Play will begin in the Senior event at 8.30am at Club Maitland City on Tuesday, May 23.

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