Skips should give their Leads More Responsibility and Respect

  

A Long Jack on Rink Three

I’ve got two gripes.

First, some skips, when playing in club or social games, just move the jack back in-bounds and center it, when a lead delivers it out of bounds or into the ditch. I know: you just want to speed up the game, but give a thought to the other lead on the rink. You are taking away that fellow’s chance to show proper mastery of line and length delivering the jack. When you don’t send the jack back to be rolled by the other side, you are effectively saying that mat position and jack length don’t matter as far as you are concerned.

Second, and I particularly feel this is important playing fours: don’t put your weakest player as lead. Your weakest player should bowl second. You want a lead who can give you the jack length you call for; who can be first in onto the jack; and who can smoothly co-operate with you about mat movement. Just to-day I was playing fours against a team whose lead consistently delivered jacks longer than she could bowl! A good lead works with the skip to get a jack length most accommodating to the whole team. The weakest player on the team can’t do this. 

The picture has nothing to do with the gripes! The guy third from the left is Jeff Harding from Canada.The game is being played at the Valverde LBC in Portugal.

A Stubborn Lead

I am not a good enough bowler to be a good skip; however I am accommodating to draw-masters at social rollups, so I do end up playing skip when everyone else is unenthusiastic about the role. Also, I know the World Bowls Rules Crystal Mark III well enough to protect my team from ‘pretender officials’.

At Valverde Bowls Club at Almancil Portugal a few weeks ago, I was the skip in a triples game. We (three gentlemen) were being pummelled by three ladies. They had been playing middle to long jacks consistently. Finally we won an end and had a chance to change something. When teamed with an inexperienced lead that cannot dependably change to a requested length, the best way to guarantee a change is to ask for a repositioning of the mat.

Amazingly, to me, my lead simply refused to move up the mat when signalled to do so! It is true that one rarely sees such a tactic at Valverde LBC but apparently (I was at the head and couldn’t hear what was said) even after the opposing vice spoke to him, either he didn’t think it was within the rules or he just wasn’t disposed towards it. I just shrugged and proceeded with the game since anything else would be unsociable and upsetting to the team.

Interestingly, my wife’s comment was that everyone hates when you do that.