Aaron Kelly admits it feels "a little bit surreal" to think that he is now a two-time singles state champion.
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It's certainly not something he envisaged, nor had any ambitions of, when he joined West Tamworth in 2019.
It was really just for the social connection and to help with his rehabilitation, after a motorcycle accident in 2012 left him with severe damage to the right side of his body.
But, within a couple of years Kelly had a state title to his name and was pulling on the NSW blue.
From there the list of accolades has only continued to grow.
He's been an Australian Open medallist, won the state multi-disability pairs and last year played at a second Para Nationals.
Most recently he beat Leichhardt's Geoffrey Seton in the final of the 2023-24 multi-disability championships played in Dubbo last month, to be crowned the state singles champion for a second time.
Along the way Kelly also claimed the scalp of reigning world champion James Reynolds, something which he acknowledges is pretty cool to be able to say.
"He's been involved in world bowls and Australian bowls for so many years and won so many things," he said.
"So that's definitely a feather in the cap."
As it was it came down to that match to decide who would progress through to the semi-finals from their section, with both having won their other three games.
Kelly found himself down early with Reynolds winning the first three ends, and without Kelly picking up a shot.
But the man from West Tamworth wasn't down without a fight and determined that there was "no way" he was going to be beaten "without scoring on a televised match" rallied to win the next five ends.
From there he pretty much held the lead.
He then won a nail-biting semi-final against Michael Kedwell 21-20 before pulling away over the final three ends to overcome Seton 21-7, who was incidentally also the player he beat in 2021.
Kelly reflected it was a bit of a different feeling winning this year.
Back in 2021 it was quite a shock, and being all new to him "there was so much to take in" that it was"just a bit of a blur".
This time round the expectation was higher, and having finished second in 2022 and just missed out on the finals last year on margins, he also had a real appreciation of how hard state championships are to win.
By his own admission not in the best of form leading in, Kelly credits the NSW High Performance clinic he was invited to attend the day before as helping him turn things around.
"It was nice to be involved in that clinic and do some practice drills and sort of have those conversations about the psychology side of the game and how important it is to think positive and stuff like that," he said.
It really helped him "try and ground" himself and focus on his game.
He is now looking ahead to the Australian Open on the Gold Coast in June, where he'll play in the singles and pairs and be hoping to "keep some good form and make some finals", particularly as he's now on the radar of those involved with the national set-up.
"I got an email from the Australian coach late last year saying that they're keeping an eye on me," Kelly said.
"So it's really important that I get some good results on the board and hopefully tick all the boxes as far as the Australian squad goes and see if anything comes of that."
