JAY Porter admits the opportunity to win arguably the biggest event in the city's bowls history will spur him on when he lines up alongside partner Carl Healey in today's final of the Masters Pairs at his home club, Dubbo Railway.
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Porter and Sydney-based Healey won through to the decided after scoring a nine-shot win over the team of David Ferguson and Chris Herden in yesterday's semi-finals.
Today they will face Craig Donaldson and Ben Twist in the final, after that pairing disposed of Paul McKenzie and Aron Sherriff in the other semi-final.
This year's Masters Pairs has $26,000 in prizemoney on offer, and while that is obviously a very juicy prize Porter admits beating a field the likes of which may never be seen again will be as exciting as any fiscal reward for five days of toil on the greens.
"There is a genuine world class field competing in this event, and we're down to the final two teams which is pretty exciting," he said.
"You look at the board and see names like Alex Marshall, Aron Sherriff and Jeremy Henry there, and there's a heap of state players competing as well, you just don't get these opportunities that often.
"To have them in Dubbo, and to be showing off our club is also terrific. Mat McIntyre has done a great job assembling this field and the staff here have had the greens in immaculate condition.
"It would be a massive thrill to walk away at the end of the week and say we were the best team but there's a lot of work to be done before that happens."
Healey and Porter bring good formlines into today's final after the semi-final opponents Ferguson and Herden had earlier disposed of the pairing of Marshall and local junior star Jono Davis.
If they were to win today it would be culmination of a plan which strangely started more than a decade ago.
"Carl and I played state juniors together 10 or 12 years ago and we always said we would play an event together and this has ended up being it," Porter said.
"The semi-final was probably the best game we have played all week so hopefully we're just hitting our top form at the right end of the competition.
"I was lucky enough to win this event a few years ago with John Green, and Ben Twist's team won it a couple of years ago as well so that's another sign of the calibre of players here. Craig Donaldson is the current NSW bowler of the year so we're going to have to play really well to win this final."
