Merrien has decisions to make after clean sweep
ALI MERRIEN has found her best touch and hopes to keep it through a busy couple of months in which she defends her British indoor title and makes her bow at the professional tour's world championship.
ALI MERRIEN has found her best touch and hopes to keep it through a busy couple of months in which she defends her British indoor title and makes her bow at the professional tour's world championship. To underline her form, Merrien came away from the Channel Islands Championships in Jersey at the weekend with four titles under her belt: singles, pairs, triples and fours.
But with British Isles Championships rules preventing her from playing more than two events in Belfast in March, the singles and one other, she has some important decisions to make as she acknowledged after her second CI full house at Grainville.
Merrien, who has won all four CI indoor crowns once before, in Guernsey, said a decision was imminent.
'I will sit down with the girls and talk it through. I think they all deserve to go.'
The Guernsey champion was particularly pleased with her comfortable 21-9 win over Jersey's top player Gaynor Thomas.
'I think I'm Gaynor's bogey player now,' said the Sarnian, who was delighted to learn that her efforts in trying to qualify for a Professional Bowls Association tournament had succeeded.
She has won a place among eight of the world's top players at the World Matchplay Championship at Potter's Holiday resort near Great Yarmouth later this month.
In what is a straight knockout she plays another qualifier, England's Debbie Starvro, for a place in the semi-finals.
The Guernsey star also plays in the mixed pairs where she has been drawn to play alongside Scotland's current Commonwealth Games gold medallist Alex Marshall.
Her CI singles final was a repeat of last year's event, with Merrien proving that she did not need home advantage to take the title.
Earlier in the day she had teamed up with Jan Lawrence, Sheila Bretel and Carol Ingrouille to defeat the impressive Jersey four skipped by Linsey Greechan of Rachel MacDonald, Chrissy Grimes and Greechan's mother-in-law Helen.
The Guernsey quartet settled well and were never really in trouble as they ran out 22-10 winners.
In the triples, skip Merrien and Ingrouille were joined by Shirley Petit at lead when they faced the two Greechans and Grimes.
Her in-form teammates made life easy for Merrien, who played many covering bowls to either protect the head or ensure that no big scores were dropped if the jack went back as Linsey Greechan resorted to husband Thomas's tactics of drive, drive, drive.
The Sarnian trio ran out 21-8 in 16 ends.
However, Ingrouille and Merrien made heavy weather of their pairs final against the Greechan mother-and-daughter-in-law combination as the match went to an extra end.
The singles champion had to draw the shot to force the match level before Ingrouille picked up the jack with her final delivery of the deciding end and lie within seven inches of the jack.
Merrien managed to protect the shot and although Greechan got to within a foot of the jack, it was not enough and Ingrouille could collect her third trophy of the weekend and Merrien her fourth.
Unfortunately, the women's under-25 singles could not be contested owing to Lianna Bichard being on a family skiing holiday so Jersey's Rachel MacDonald will be representing the CI in the British Isles Championships.