The Lead’s Bowls: the Second Bowl of an End at Lawn Bowls

When the opposition have the mat, they deliver the jack and the first bowl of the end. This is not the time to be chatting, getting a drink or finding your own bowls. You should be standing behind your opposite lead watching the line taken and the result achieved. You should use this information to improve the outcome for your first bowl of the end.

Leads are required to follow the instructions of their Skips and these instructions are provided by hand and body signals they send once the previous bowler has completed a delivery. What is written here is only to acquaint you with some of the considerations a skip may be having when deciding what instructions to send.

Opposing Lead’s Bowl >2 meters from the Jack

An opposing bowl that finishes more than 2 metres from the jack should not be a consideration when deciding your own first delivery. Knowing the aim line that was taken by that bowl is very much a consideration. It can be a guide or a warning depending on how that bowl finished.

Opposing Lead’s Bowl is Close  but Behind the Jack

You might think that an opposing first bowl that finishes just to the side of the jack and around a bowl length behind it would make your life more difficult but in fact it presents an opportunity. If you can follow that bowl down the rink and come to rest touching that bowl (resting the bowl) you will be shot bowl. If by chance you strike that bowl with a bit more velocity you will roll it back and take its place! (chop and lie). In both cases the opposition bowl makes it more likely that you will have a happy result.

Opposing Lead’s Bowl is Behind the Jack but not Very Close

The Opposing Lead has just delivered a back bowl. Your skip will want your first bowl to finish closer to the jack and preferably behind the jack. Your skip is likely to let you choose the hand you prefer. If you have no strong personal preference choose the hand your opposite lead played, you will have a better estimate of the correct aim line.

Opposing Lead’s Bowl is Jack High but about a Mat length Wide of the Jack.

When a bowl is jack high the term means that the front edge of that bowl and the front edge of the jack are the same distance down the rink. Another term is they are jack level.

This is a favourable situation for your side. This bowl does not block your delivery path and is not so close to the jack as to be an eventual serious competition for shot bowl. Rather it confers a small advantage to your side. 

If you deliver your bowl on the same hand with enough weight to reach to or behind the jack but your bowl runs a little wide you can get a wick off this opposing bowl that will push your bowl in towards the jack and push the opposing bowl away.

Your skip is likely to call for you to bowl to the jack on the same hand where the opposing jack high bowl is sitting.

Jack or Bowl Situation

Suppose the opposing lead delivers a jack high bowl that is so close to the jack that another bowl would be impossible or almost impossible to squeeze between them without any contact. This is called the jack or bowl situation. Your skip might call for you to bowl to a specific spot on the other side of the rink from the close opposing bowl because that is where the jack is very likely to be by the completion of the end.

In Your Line but >1 metre in Front of the Mat

Unfortunately your skip will decide whether that bowl is in your draw line. I say unfortunate because often you will have a better idea of whether your delivery is blocked than the skip. For the sake of the overall team cohesion please follow the skip’s decision in this situation; even though your judgment may be the better one. When the skip asks you to change the hand it is for fear that your bowl will be stopped far in front of the head. The open hand will give you a clear path to the jack!

In Your Line but Quite Close in Front of the Jack

Ironically, when your opposite’s lead bowl is unambiguously in your line, your skip may not switch you to the other hand. The reason is that even if you hit that blocking bowl squarely your bowl will finish a very good second and if your bowl just glances off that opposing bowl and rolls on a tad further it my be you who has shot bowl!