The person who arranges the teams for games of
social bowls at the local lawn bowling club never faces all the problems that
the draw master at an open tournament encounters, but there is one problem this
club volunteer faces more often, indeed, at least half the time: what to do
when you have an odd number who want to play?
The answer, wherever I have gone in the world, is to have a ‘swing lead’. A swing
lead delivers bowls for each team alternately. In some places, the number of
bowls that the lead delivers is reduced. For example, in a game of triples a
swing lead may play two bowls for each side rather than the three bowls that a regular lead would play. Half of the swing lead’s bowls are
marked with tape and the other half are without. This is so, at the completion
of each end, the lead bowls delivered for each side can be identified for the
count.
Some players don’t mind being in a game where there is a swing lead; others
hate it. There are some who would rather not play than participate in a game
with a swing lead! There are certainly disadvantages. When playing a game with
a swing lead the skip can and should always give away the mat, because you want
the swing lead to deliver bowls for your side after weight and line from the
other side’s bowls. Particularly, you want that first lead bowl to be delivered
for the other side! Looking at the
situation another way, the swing lead bowler gets no thrill of competition
because (s)he is not up against any opponent but part of both teams. All the
swing lead can do is practice technique. Also, the swing lead is doing the
raking in every end.
I would like to propose an alternative applicable to games of triples; the most
common social game.
A team of four players can compete against a regular triples team. Each team
will deliver 9 bowls as in regular triples, the difference being that for the
team of four the lead will deliver two bowls, the second two bowls, the vice two
bowls and the skip the usual three bowls. For the three person team, each member will
deliver three bowls as usual. Each team will have grassed nine bowls each end. In
this way seven players will be engaged on one rink and each player will be part
of just one team.
The same trick can be used in a competitive tournament with multiple rounds of
competition. Some teams will have four players other teams three. No correction
needs to be made to the scores because all teams have bowled the same number of
bowls in a match.
A point often missed is that when playing with a swing lead, the jack is rolled by the second in fours and the vice in triples, not by the swing lead. Delivering the jack is too important to be done by someone who bowls for both sides.
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