World Bowls President – Brett O’Riley

Bowls North Harbour patron, and Takapuna club member, Brett O’Riley, has achieved the top administrative position in the game when this this week he became president of World Bowls.

O’Riley, who for the past two years, has been the board’s Oceania zone director, was appointed for a two-year term as World Bowls president.
Only one other New Zealander has held this position, the former Bowls chief executive, Kerry Clark.

O’Riley comes to the role with impressive credentials, both in the sport and from the high positions he has held in the business and corporate worlds.

From a family steeped in the game, O’Riley says he has been around bowls clubs almost from the time he had learned to work. At 18 he became a member of the Petone Central Club and in his 20s he played to a high level, winning three Wellington centre titles, representing the New Zealand development team and playing in two national championship finals, finishing as the runner-up on each occasion.

These were in 1991 when he was in a four with members of the illustrious Skoglund family, Phil senior, one of New Zealand’s greatest ever bowlers, and his sons, Philip junior and Raymond. Then the following season he played the singles against another legend of New Zealand bowlers, Peter Belliss.

But from then on, though he has remained competitive, his professional career took priority.

Starting as a journalist with The Dominion, Brett then moved more into the world of public relations and marketing. He worked in the Beehive as a press officer in both the Muldoon National Government and the Lange Labour Government.

One of the ministers for whom he worked was Mike Moore in his Sport and Recreation role, thus giving him his first insight Into national sports administration.

Later he worked in executive positions with Telecom, Tourism Auckland and more recently as head of the Employers and Manufacturers Association.

This background has made him an invaluable member of various bowls administrations. As a young man he was Wellington bowls publicity officer, he has been on the boards and committees of those clubs of which he has been a member, twice a member of Bowls Auckland’s board and for some years in the early 2000s president of the Professional Bowlers Association.

With his Takapuna club he has recently served on its match committee, where his knowledge of the game, its rules and regulations have been an asset, and been a club selector, being manager of the club side which won the North Harbour sevens inter-club competition and competed in the national play-offs.

He believes his recent term as Oceania director has equipped him well for the presidency of World Bowls.

He acknowledges that game at its various levels faces challenges but sees them more as an opportunity. Bowls, he says, can be a complex sport to administer as it caters for all ages and from the recreational to those at elite levels.

He was heavily involved in World Bowls’ success in retaining its place in the 2026 Commonwealth Games to be held now in Glasgow instead of Victoria, Australia.

Of necessity this has required several compromises, having to play in sets, indoors and being limited to singles and pairs. O’Riley has joined Australian administrators in their hope that bowls might be included in the 2032 Olympics to be held in Queensland.

However, before this could be achieved more work had to be done in growing the number of countries playing the sport.

One potential global growth area for the sport was in Asian countries and particularly, those in the Middle East who could be swayed by the success a Muslim Country like Malaysia has had over many years now at international levels.

O’Riley thanks the support he has received from Bowls New Zealand, which he praises for having been an innovative world leader in fostering YouTube televising and introducing shorter formats.

One of the main pleasures bowls has given him has been in meeting so many fine people, including Introducing him to his wife, Robyne Walker, who is also a fine player, having been twice a gold medallist in national events and three times a runner-up, and a leading administrator at club and centre levels.

She, too, comes from a family steeped in bowls, her grandfather Cyril Walker having been an outstanding administrator.