Collins goes on the attack over non-selection of talented youngsters

GARRY COLLINS, Bowls Guernsey's chief executive, has hit back in the Commonwealth Games selection row. The under-fire bowls supremo said in response to the non-selected Dan de la Mare and Craig Dorey, two of the sport's brightest prospects: 'I set them a challenge which I place my career as a selector on'.

'I will give them a sheet of blank paper and I want them to place every two-bowl game they have played over the five months of the summer season.

'From my records, de la Mare has not played a single two-bowls game, while Dorey has played four to five games and lost all of them.

'I'm lost as to why we have criteria. The players selected are, in my mind, the best and I give them 100% support.

'The players we have selected have pages of two-bowls victories.

'I can also confirm Dorey and de la Mare pulled out of the inter-insular after being selected.

'If you don't play the type of games needed, what can we select you on . . . because you are my cousins, family?'

Collins, who has been announced as team manager for men's bowls in Melbourne, has also thrown more light on Dorey's claim that he is banned from all outdoor bowls until he pays for an unused air ticket.

'Dorey stated that he gave the association eight months notice, but he qualified for the competition only two months before the tickets were booked.'

Dorey has been asked to appear before a bowls council hearing on 24 October when he will be asked why he requested a ticket for this year's British Isles Championships and then chose not to go.