The McEwan family : Jordie, Lachie, Shannon and Brent

While most pre-teen kids are buried in their Playstations, Nintendos, Xboxes and mobiles ‘working out’ on the likes of the ROBLOX virtual universe , the Minecraft digital ‘sandbox’ or the Fortnite game platform, 9 year old Lachie and 12 year old Jordie McEwan are instead busy playing ‘real’ sport .. working out in the way you and I know it … physically outdoors, rather than digitally in front of a screen.

They love (and play) rugby, darts, touch, cricket, golf, basketball and more.

In fact it’s probably easier to list the sports they don’t love and play than those they do!  And that love extends to passionately following the Otago Highlanders, the Otago Volts, the Otago Nuggets, the All Blacks, the New Zealand Warriors. Their fandom goes on.

But their BIG love, which trumps all, is lawn bowls.

“They’ve both been playing since forever!,“ says mum Shannon McEwan, herself a representative bowler for the Dunedin Centre.  “As soon as they could walk, they had picked up some mini bowls and were playing on the lounge carpet.”

“And because both my husband Brent and I have been playing bowls together for 10 or so years, the kids used to join us at the club and soon progressed to playing on the big lawn green with size two-and-a-halfs.”

It’s fair to say that the whole family is In love with the game.

Brent used to play golf.  Real seriously.  In fact he even played for New Zealand.  “I switched from golf to bowls 9 years ago,” he says.  “It was less time-consuming to get around a 33 metre green than a 10 kilometre course!”

He still plays golf ‘socially’. Although with a plus one handicap, he’s hardly just a weekend warrior.

Like Shannon, Brent’s a Dunedin bowls rep too. So for that matter are both Lachie and Jordie.  They all come from a great bowls pedigree …both Brent and Shannon’s parents continue to play bowls today,  as did their parents.  Bowls is in the family blood as much as cheese rolls and Speight’s.

They’re all getting VERY good at the game.

“The boys are winning a lot of tournaments … and it’s creating a lot of pressure on school attendance,” says Shannon. “That’s okay now … Lachie is still at St Bernadette’s Primary and Jordie at Tahuna Intermediate, but once they get to high school, it will be more difficult to take them out to go to bowls tournaments.”

“Brent and the kids are going up to Wellington at the beginning of April to represent Dunedin in the Interclub Sevens … it’s the first time the St Clair Bowling Club has got through for 31 years.  Brent’s playing the Singles … Jordie the Pairs with Martin Kreft … and Lachie’s playing Two in the Fours with Dave Thomas, Eion Wills and Ross Stevens.”

The St Clair Bowling Club Interclub Sevens Team (Left to right) : Brent McEwan, Eion Willis, Lachie McEwan, Jordie, McEwan, Martin Kreft, Ross Stevens, David Thomas

“I’m not going up because I need to take the boys to the Kittyhawk Under 21’s a couple of weeks later.  We’ve got to juggle bowls with work too!  Plus, it gets pretty expensive!”

In the National Open Men’s Fours in late February in Christchurch, Brent, Jordie and Lachie with Ross Stevens reached the final 32.  Even then, they were beaten just 22-14 by a team of some of the best bowlers in the country : Sheldon Bagrie-Howley, Keanu Darby, Jesse Russell and Taylor Horn.

That’s a HUGE achievement.

Most bowlers never reach that sort of level playing a lifetime of bowls.  Remember : this isn’t schoolboy bowls we’re talking about … this is a 9 and 12 year old playing against New Zealand’s elite in an elite New Zealand competition!

You’re 100% certainly going to hear a lot more about Jordie and Lachie in the bowls world (and probably mum and dad as well!).

They both don’t want to be rocket scientists or movie stars when they ‘grow up’ … they want to be professional outdoor bowlers playing for the Blackjacks.

“I want to play bowls in the Olympics when they’re on the Gold Coast in 2032,” says Jordie, in no doubt that bowls will be included in the Olympics by then even as a trial sport.

With their dad, Brent, now with a Gold Star for Dunedin … and Shannon with a Centre win … and with all the tournament wins the boys are racking up, their bowls ambitions look pretty much a certainty.

“People in Dunedin know they’re really good,” says Shannon.  “And they feel privileged to play with them.  In the early days, their selection raised a few eyebrows.”

“But they’ve let their bowls do the talking.”

And it’s going to be chat that not only Dunedin hears, but New Zealand hears more too.  And maybe even one day, the world!

Jordie and Lachie look the real deal on the green. And they are!