You know what I would like to do? I’d like to play lead for
a good pairs, triples, or fours team. I thought, when I started lawn bowling,
that I would be a lead for five or six years! I looked forward to it. But it
hardly ever happened. In every club I’ve ever played at in Canada, players are pushed up the
tagboard, to second, then vice, then skip, based on relative skill, not
competence; because you know the rules; because you know how to measure;
because you know how to fill out a scorecard; because you’ve been around a long time. You must go up because new
members are joining and we must make room for them at the bottom- as leads.
I will soon go to Portugal to play while winter occupies
Canada. Out of politeness, I tell them there I can play in any position-
whatever works for the drawmaster. “Would you be a skip?” they ask. Once I
answer yes to that, I’m most often a skip and never again a lead.
Now Australia is different. At Turramurra (North Sydney)
there are enough excellent players to provide ‘real’ skips for every rink, even
at the lower pennant levels where the selector properly placed me. A ‘real’
skip is someone who cares where the mat is set and cares how long the jack is
delivered. Still, there are enough poorer players, even in Australia, that I am
a second for a fours team. Even here leading eludes me.
After five years lawn bowling I have never seen any other
person practicing delivering jacks. It’s as if it didn’t matter.
That's interesting, Clarke. At our club (St Ives Bowls Club, near Cambridge, England) the lead is considered a specialist, someone who can get the team off to a vital good start and put pressure on the opposition. Only the best draw bowlers play lead and are generally the most experienced players.
ReplyDeleteI'm captain for our men's fours league team. Although experience and skill are requirements for my skips, of equal importance is a positive, enthusiastic attitude. I expect skips to console and encourage a player who delivers a bad bowl, and to enthuse about good bowls. Our skips always indicate the jack length by walking to the spot where it is to be delivered, and applauding an accurate jack delivery.
If you're ever in England in summer, please get in touch for a visit. Even better, come for a season. Regards, John
Clark, in preparation for a regional Singles qualification playdown, I practiced for 3 days of 4 hours on the delivery of the jack and the ability to roll to the jack at any distance.
ReplyDeleteAs skip I appreciate a lead who can place the jack within a step (2 feet)of my demand position. Of interest for leads and the throwing the jack is a comment I heard from a Nova Scotia player at a interprovincal competition.
"If you deliver your bowl within 30 seconds of having delivered the jack your body will have remembered the delivery weight used for the jack and applies it to the delivery of your first bowl" Check it out. It really is true.
Springhiler - www.ishi-in-sn.blogspot.ca