It was down to the last game when Dunedin's Janet Goodin played the decisive shot to give the New Zealand seniors a narrow win in the transtasman test.
She teamed with Graeme Morris (Masterton) to win that vital pairs game to give New Zealand a 62-58 win in the over-60s test at Lake Macquarie recently.
If Australia had won the last game it would have tied the scores, and Australia would have won the test on a points differential.
''The test was a step up from what we play in New Zealand,'' Goodin said.
''We had to look at the game tactically and try to control it.''
The other Otago members of the New Zealand seniors team were Neville Frost, of Dunedin, and Marilyn Bunce, of Alexandra.
They were also members of the team that won the seniors test last year. It was Frost's third successive transtasman win.
Goodin (69), an activity person at Thornbury House, has been playing petanque since 1999 but her competitive game has only fallen into place over the past three years.
Frost, the corporate services manager at Forsyth Barr Stadium, has been a member of the New Zealand team for the past three years.
''We won easily in 2011, it was closer last year and a nail-biter this year,'' Frost said.
''There is a lot more at stake when you get into the international arena.
''There is a pressure to perform.''
Goodin and Frost were joined in the New Zealand team by fellow Caversham Petanque Club members Sarah Lyall and Andrew Townsend who were in the junior team beaten 29-9 by Australia.
Lyall (20), a caregiver, started playing petanque at 11 when she was a pupil at Taieri College. She previously represented New Zealand in 2008.
Townsend (20), a student of hospitality management at Otago Polytechnic, was representing New Zealand for the first time.
