Bowls Tactics: When you are Behind in the Last End but Have the Mat

 

Introduction

Lawn bowls is a game where consistency is rewarded. It is not how close a particular bowl is to the jack; it is how often your bowls are close to the jack. Throughout most of a match no-one should fret if an opponent builds up a big lead beating your own close deliveries. As long as your side maintains a consistency of excellent bowling, the law of averages can be counted on to even out the difference.

When the final ends come around, however, such complacency is no longer warranted. To win the match the team that is behind must act in ways that would be inadvisable tactics any other time in the match and the team that is leading must be aware of this and take appropriate counter-measures.

The further a side is behind, the sooner these strategies need to be invoked. In a group of blog articles I am considering these last-end situations.

 

You are Behind in the Last End but Have the Mat

You have just won the penultimate end of your match; but, you are still behind. They have the last bowl. Your side gets to place the mat and roll the jack. Very few skips make good use of these choices. It is all you have to work with. You want to choose the conditions that make their side as uncomfortable as possible relative to your side. You need to squeeze out every particle of advantage from the situation.

You have won the end just finished. If it is obvious from the previous ends what to do now, just do it. If it is not obvious how to proceed, choose what is radically different. This may throw off your side even more than your opponents but remember: you want an end that scores a multiple and a mat position and length that makes both sides uncomfortable is most likely to do that. You must just hope that your side is the side least upset!

A theoretically good choice, if you have nothing else to go on is to deliver a medium jack from partway up the green. The logic is this. It will be harder for the other side to properly estimate the jack length but because your side has delivered the jack your lead bowler will have a better initial  ’feel’ for the correct length. You do not want a long jack because you might need to try to ‘kill’ the end (if the rules allow) and the closer the jack is to the front ditch the less likely you can drive it out of bounds rather than just putting it in the ditch. Alternately (If you are playing with re-spotting) you do not want the jack to be on the forward T because you might need the extra choices arising from re-spotting to a distinctly different position that would provide increased possibilities for the multiple you seek.  

As you can see, strategically, it is significant whether the last end is open or closed. That is— whether the end can be killed and replayed, or the jack must instead be re-spotted if it is driven out of bounds. It is advantageous to the trailing team if killing the end is allowed. If your side has delivered a very close bowl that also widens the head, your opponents will be assessing the possible benefit from attempting a ‘kill’. This is what you want them to be forced to attempt because if they miss, that bowl of theirs cannot score. 

Finally, of course, it is important by how many shots are you trailing? To be trailing by even a single shot when the opponents also have last bowl is a considerable disadvantage. No matter how badly the end develops for them, they will have that final chance to turn it around. You can do nothing about their last bowl. There is no rejoinder.

Since they do have last bowl, the best situation you can aim for is to be sitting match in hand when the opposing skip comes to make that final delivery.  This will apply psychological pressure. You need to make him/her choke!  You want to make that shot as difficult as possible.