I started playing lawn bowls seven years ago, I felt it was a challenging game
both in terms of body control and strategic and tactical thinking. Sadly, the
way social lawn bowls is being played
today, in Portugal during the winter and in Canada during the summer, the game
seems to be degrading towards boredom.
Skips seem more
intent on chit-chatting with their opposite than working with their leads to choose
the best jack length and mat position given the twists of the game. Front ends
don’t communicate among themselves to improve their deliveries. Short jacks,
jacks in the gutter, or jacks out of bounds are just dragged back into an
approximately acceptable position rather than being sent back to the opposing
lead for re-delivery.
It has apparently
become socially unacceptable to move the mat more than three meters from the
back ditch. “It’s just a practice game” I’m told when I ask about these things.
Some practice: when the length more than 80% of the time is just between 27 and
30 meters. Some practice when the mat is 99% of the time within 2 to 3 meters of
the back ditch. If it’s just practice why isn’t the careless bowler, who
delivers a wrong bias, returned that bowl for another try? Why do they even
keep score?
At least in
Portugal, a match is 18 ends. In Canada, players frequently vote for as few as
10 ends and 12 ends is common. Why not?...... Well, bowls is a game that is designed
to reward consistent execution. It is the length of the game that sorts out the
meritorious from the plain lucky.
Look. People
can choose to entertain themselves however they want. I accept this. But I
think what new participants look for in a sport is something that is both challenging
and vigorously contested. Lawn bowls cannot help being slower than other sports
but it doesn’t need to become lackadaisical!
We had a guest speak at our club last year. He was an accomplished bowler and had come to talk about strategy. We promoted the talk to tournament and social bowlers. Few of the former attended ("we could give that talk...") - so it was mostly social bowlers.. Anyway, a good portion of the talk was on aspects of gamesmanship and psychology (things like moving the mat up to break opposition's rhythm). A few of our social bowlers where looking at each other during the talk...and one finally spoke up that she wasn't in the game for that "sort of competition".
ReplyDeleteLikewise few of the competitive bowlers have time for chit-chat and take their bowls seriously... I've just come to the acceptance that its courses for horses and bowlers tend to sort themselves out into the right groups.
It seems like it is the same all over. Since lawn bowling is easy to do adequately yet challenging at higher levels it draws a quite varied group of participants. I enjoy bowling socially and I am also very competitive. In tournaments you know exactly why you are there. To win. And everybody is on the same page. With social bowling we all want different levels of competitiveness. As a Skip and someone recently returned to the sport I am often unsure what tone to take with the team. How much direction should I give? How much advice should I give struggling teammates? And am I in a game where we will kick an errant Jack in or are we going to retoss? I love the sport and enjoy competition but have to not come across as being to serious.
ReplyDeleteLove your blog by the way.
ReplyDelete