Changing Mat Position and Jack Length at Bowls

Which rink am I playing on?

Here are what I think are the key points concerning changing the mat location along with changing the jack length. Some of these assessments may be controversial. That is what the comment section is for.

⦁ If you are the lead, let your skip know if you are comfortable with moving the mat and changing lengths
⦁ Changing mat position and length in pairs, triples, and fours games is mainly used to help your lead outdraw the counterparty
⦁ Never change a winning trend….. always a losing one. Winning the last end does not constitute a trend.
⦁ If you need to change, change the mat position and length at the same time.
⦁ If it upsets the opposition more than it upsets your side, it is working!
⦁ Particularly when using a nonstandard mat position, visualize the path of your bowl before delivery.
⦁ Your initial delivery line at a new mat position should be parallel to the line you would have taken from a mat on the 2-meter mark; that is, your aim point on the bank gets narrower as you move the mat forward.
⦁ After your first delivery from this new mat position adjust your line; the rink is not flat and you are bowling across different ground.
⦁ If you get possession of the mat and need two or more points in the upcoming end, change the mat position. Although, the change may be just as likely to lose you two or more points as win them, if you must have more than a single you should risk it. 
⦁ If you are taking the mat well up the rink and plan to play a short end with a less experienced lead, place the mat two meters short of the hog line and call for the jack two meters from the front ditch. This gives your lead the greatest leeway to deliver an acceptable jack.

Delivery at Lawn Bowls: Subtracting Weight

Steve McKerihan is a perennial player on Canada’s Commonwealth Games Lawn Bowling teams and a frequent coach for lawn bowling skills development. He is also the father of Kelly McKerihan one of the premier lawn bowlers in the world.

Last week we were in a group chatting after a mens’ interclub match and he mentioned that a dependable way to take off weight, when your previous bowl is a meter or so long is to deliver this next bowl with the same arm speed and body weight transfer but to not stay down when you deliver your bowl but to start to rise as you release it. The reason why this should work is that by lifting your body as you release the bowl, you transfer some of the horizontal energy which is what moves the bowl down the rink, into a vertical component of energy that is wasted. As a consequence the bowl doesn’t travel quite as far.

The physics of this was immediately incontrovertible to me. Furthermore, this is why you are told to stay down throughout your delivery if you don’t want to be short. I said to Steve, “On Youtube I have seen top bowlers not staying down and I thought they were making a mistake.”

“No, no” was his reply, “they are just subtracting weight.”

Well, I’ve been bowling seven years now and I’ve attended weight control clinics and I’ve never heard this. What’s more important I’ve been trying it and it works!

Lawn Bowls Rules:When a Bowl Falls

I know Laws of the Sport of Bowls Crystal Mark Third Edition pretty well, but a situation occurred in a club roll-up the other night when I wasn’t so sure.

I got it right on the rink but I rushed home afterwards, got a beer from the fridge, and started thumbing through my reprint of the rules. Here is the situation:

 the end is finished; the vices go to measure but before they can do anything one of the earliest bowls delivered, which is close to the jack, falls. It becomes the closest bowl although it appears that an opposition bowl probably would have been shot if this first bowl had not fallen.

I advised that the now fallen bowl, which was now closest to the jack, was shot.

I knew that the rules stated that any member of either team could have placed a support against the tilting bowl before measuring began, but no one had done so. I knew that a skip could request that everyone wait 30 seconds after the final bowl of the end to see whether a bowl would fall before wedging it. However these rules clearly did not apply in this case.

My subsequent research shows that the relevant rule is 23.6.3

“[I]f a bowl falls of its own accord, it must be left in its new position while deciding the number of shots scored continues, and all the shots agreed before the bowl fell will count;”

Since no shots had been agreed before the bowl fell, my interpretation is that the head is counted with the fallen bowl in its new position.

Interestingly, since we won the game by one point, this decision eventually determined the winner on the night.