Lawn bowler Shaun Parnis from Dapto, NSW elevated the status of Maltese Lawn Bowls to world class standards at this year’s World Lawn Bowls Men’s Singles World Cup, which was hosted by the Warilla Bowling Complex during the last fortnight.

On Friday he was defeated by Malaysia’s Safuan Said in the semi-finals to finish a highly creditable third in the prestigious competition.

Calm, cool, and collected, Shaun Parnis gave his all when he played several matches against the world’s top bowlers and got through to the semi-finals undefeated.

Along the way, he managed to beat two current world champions – Safuan Said of Malaysia and Ali Forsyth of New Zealand.

A large crowd of Shaun’s enthusiastic Maltese and Australian supporters went to the Warilla Bowling Club last Friday morning to watch him battle it out once again against the current Malaysian World Singles Champion Safuan Said, whom Shaun defeated in two straight sets earlier in the preliminary games.

Having won the first end of the first set, Safuan gave the mat away to Shaun and controlled the two sets very comfortably to the very end. This was a rejuvenated Safuan.

Under pressure with three down in the seventh end of the second set, Shaun slowed the game down and visited a very difficult head of bowls. His fans wondered what he would do next. Cool take-me-as-I-am Shaun, looked at his fans straight in their eyes and gave them one of his affable smiles, and they responded by cheering him on. Returning to the mat, he delivered a brilliant bowl, which cut that head to one down.

Malaysian champion Safuan managed to beat the Maltese 9-5, 11-6, (nine ends each game) which compares much better than Kiwi Ali Forsyth’s loss to Safuan Said in the finals, by 9-5 and 10- 2 with the last game ending on the 8th end.

Safuan Said displayed brilliant skills on the day. Ironically, the Malaysian and the Kiwi both lost two of their preliminary games, while Shaun only lost one game during the whole tournament – a sudden death loss at the semis.

Shaun thanked his loyal supporters who went to watch him play.

I have now watched Shaun Parnis play many International representative games for Malta and, in my opinion, this time he managed to take Maltese Bowls to where they have never been before. Shaun finished in equal third place out of 21 countries, which competed at the 2008 Men’s Singles Word Cup.

It is now no longer beyond the realms of imagination, that in the not too distant future we may see a friendly series titled, Malta vs Australia, but we will need to hear from generous Maltese sponsors for this to happen.

As the NSW representative of the Malta Lawn Bowls Association, I invite would – be Maltese sponsors to call us on 0421 016 801, and we will explain to you, how you can join us at ground level to support this newly found, but very successful Maltese international sport.

Well done Shaun and your club, the Maltese Bowlers Social Club of NSW.