Both of Dunedin's teams enjoyed success in the Region six finals played at the Bowls Dunedin Centre greens over the weekend.
While the senior team appeared to go through effortlessly, the development team had to rely on the result of the last game in that section of the inter-centre tournament, between North Otago's Brendon Day and Southland's Broome, going its way.
Southland needed to win this singles match to secure the Region 6 title and advance to the national final at the beginning of April.
Day won the first set, only for the Southlander to win the second, forcing a tiebreak.
Such was the intensity, even this went to the wire, with Day eventually completing a 3-2 upset and recording just the second match victory of the development section for North Otago.
"Let it be known that I helped Dunedin go through," Day said afterwards.
Day's victory also ended the run enjoyed by Southland, which had made a habit of winning the regional development round in recent years.
New Zealand under-25 player Mark Watt also contributed to Dunedin's victory.
After dropping his first-round game, he regained his composure to progress through the remaining rounds undefeated.
Although Southland ended the competition tied on 20 points with Dunedin, a countback of sets won gave victory to Dunedin, 22-18.
South Canterbury (16 points) was third.
The success of Dunedin's senior team was due to the performances of Shaun Scott in the singles and its triples team of Paul Girdler, Nigel Wright and Dennis Leeden, all of whom finished unbeaten.
The four bowlers accounted for 18 of the team's 22 match points, enough to give it the senior competition regional final, from South Canterbury on 16 with Southland and South Otago tied on 12.
Scott, in particular, was on song throughout, his most notable victory coming in his final-round match against New Zealand representative Sean O'Neill (South Canterbury), where he won both sets (12-8 and 15-4).
Both Dunedin teams now advance to the national regional final in Palmerston North on April 4 and 5.