The duo lost their first game and knew it'd be an uphill battle to make the semi-finals, and when they did they came up against the might of Hamish McDonald and Australian representative Aaron Teys.

They won.

In a tight affair, the reigning premiers picked up a 17-14 win over McDonald and Teys to advance to Thursday's quarter finals, and to say Moloney was thrilled was an understatement.

"I've still got to get over the high of beating these guys today but you just try and get as close as you can and see how you go tomorrow," he said on Wednesday.

"You know (Teys) is always going to be in the area, you know he's always going to give it a fair crack and you know it's all about getting close and we were lucky enough he wasn't on his game."

Moloney said conditions had been tricky on Wednesday.

"The green was tricky but we just picked it a little bit better," he said.

"The storm definitely slowed the green down and didn't affect it much but there were a couple of gusts of wind during the day which just did some weird things to the bowls."

The two have been eye-catching on the field, too, with both Moloney and Bates in very colourful shirts, which the former said was to raise awareness about cancer.

"It's inspired because everyone's affected by cancer these days," he said.

"You talk to anyone and you hear stories from them and it's a nice tournament shirt."

The tournament has also been a challenge for the duo, with a "stronger group of competitors" this year than in 2019 when they won it, but there are still similarities.

"We lost the first one last year and it's the same situation, we somehow scraped through," he said.

"First thought is it's going to be a hard track to get back into finals, we were lucky to win four with a good margin.

"We swapped the arrangement of our sides, I was skipping first and then we swapped and haven't lost yet.

"I don't know what it was, it's just worked. We'll just keep plugging along."

In the other semi-finals, Lee Stintson and Corey Wedlock had a massive 27-11 win over Ben and Sam Allcorn, Phil Reynolds and Peter Thelan defeated Craig Jones and Darren Seton 16-14 and Cocksedge and Beattie were too strong for Lowe and Hardwick, winning 22-11.

Finals continue Thursday.