Taking the Mat when Playing on End Rinks at Lawn Bowls

Greenbowler has talked about the pros and cons between ‘taking the mat’ or letting the opponents ‘lead the way’. Whatever readers’ opinions on this may be, there is one situation where the decision is even more clear cut than usual. An example arose in a match I played this year.

 
We were playing on an end rink. Such rinks tend to have a chronic problem of wonkiness. Very often the hand closest to the side ditch is seriously un-level or the grass is patchy or trampled down. There is a serious risk that only the other hand will be playable. If you win the toss, you take the mat and try to get that first bowl in on the side away from this possible trouble. If you get shot, it is very easy to block up this playable side.

 In this particular instance, the opponents won the toss but gave the mat away. We got off to a good start. As lead, I never delivered a single bowl on the hand close to the side ditch. When bowls seemed to block my preferred hand, I changed my position on the mat to avoid those bowls but kept bowling the same hand. Many times our opponents tried to draw on the wonky side, almost uniformly with bad results.

Twenty five percent of lawn bowling rinks are end rinks. Be prepared for their special strategic requirements.