Head Reading at Lawn Bowls: The ‘Jack or Bowl’ Motif

The Motif Approach to Head Reading

To a pedantic person, a lawn bowl's head is an area encompassing all the bowls in play and the jack. Pragmatically, the head comprises all the bowls in play likely to be or become significant, the jack, and the rink area around them. To illustrate the difference: when your skip tells you to stay back of the head, he or she doesn't mean you need to be on the bank just because there are a few bowls, four meters behind the jack (though you should not stand in a way that would obscure them).

 A motif is defined as a main element, idea, feature, etc. The main cultural areas where the word is used are art, literature, and music. I am going to extend the term to identify any common, significant feature in a lawn bowl head. Enumerating the motifs displayed in any lawn bowling head along with an understanding of their significance for the selection of your tactics for that head will be my approach to lawn bowling head analysis.

 Before I can analyze a head in this way, I must identify each of the common motifs. I will start, in this blog, with the ‘jack or bowl’ motif and continue the examination in later blogs.

’Jack or Bowl’ Motif

I will define an approximately jack-high opposing bowl that is sitting shot, with 5.5 inches or less distance between it and the jack as the ’jack or bowl’ motif.

For us ordinary mortals, this arrangement of the jack and one bowl lying shot is unlikely to be defeated with draw bowls. However, because the distance between the jack and bowl is small enough that it is also unlikely that you can roll a bowl between them without disturbing one or both, an on-shot delivered at this target has a heightened chance to move either the jack, the opposing bowl, or both, because this target is substantially wider in cross-section than a jack or bowl sitting isolated.  Therefore aiming to hit this cluster has an improved chance for success.

The closer this space between the jack-high bowl and the jack is to the actual width of your own bowl when it is on its running surface, the sooner the attack should be considered because your opponents will realize that this setup presents a big opportunity for your side to get rid of their shot bowl and will try to alter the situation by placing receiving bowls at the back, blocking your planned on-shot, or tickling the jack into a more secure location. Nevertheless, in a pairs, triples, or fours game, hitting the jack or bowl motif is best left to the team player most experienced with run-through shots.  The most likely strategy of the side owning the shot bowl is to get other bowls behind the jack in a catching position or to cover any re-spot position(s).

When it is the opposing lead that creates the ‘shot or bowl’ situation, a good strategy is to direct your own lead to get one of his/her bowls into the head so that it widens the target. What is anathema in the situation is for your lead to be short blocking your subsequent drive or on-shot. If your lead has two bowls remaining when the ‘jack or bowl’ situation arises, first ask for a bowl 1-2 meters behind the jack and then ask for the next bowl jack-high to widen the target. The first bowl will help provide a better sense of the correct weight; the second will make use of this knowledge to set up the target for destruction.