A Tactic at Lawn Bowling Triples When Your Vice Can’t Get the Right Weight

The Greenbowler blog has regularly expressed a preference for playing your second-best player and, wishfully, your best draw bowler in the lead position. When this is the choice you have made, you probably have a lead who is also able to deliver a jack within a meter or two of where the skip asks.

A situation can sometimes arise when really no player on the rink is bowling particularly well, with the effect that each side is winning its share of ends. What you sense is holding you back from moving in front in the game is that your vice is all over the place with respect to weight control. You feel that if your vice could get some bowls decently close to the jack, it would make a consequential difference.

The skip will have been noticing how far down the rink these vice—delivered bowls predominantly finish, and when in possession of the mat, he/she can indicate to the lead to deliver the jack to that length. This is an instance of using jack length to support the member of your own team experiencing the most difficulty. Often, this required jack length will be an intermediate length because that is often the vice’s natural length.

This use of jack length contrasts with the more common ones I usually recommend, whereby I call for very short or very long jacks to try to interrupt superior play by the other side that is defeating, to that point, your best efforts. 

A Theory About the Lead’s Bowls Playing Lawn Bowls Triples

When the lead plays his bowls in a triples match at least 12 bowls are left to be played in every end. It cannot be guessed whether his team will need to be protective or aggressive. The skip and to a lesser extend the vice have indicators of how play is proceeding. What can the lead do to increase the value of those opening bowls?

I have an idea. The lead must try to create a head favourable to his side.

This is easier to do if his side has the mat but even bowling second there are superior and inferior contributions.

All three lead bowls should finish behind the jack. To increase the probability of this, the lead’s first bowl must be weighted to be intentionally long.

Since it is the plan to be consistently further behind the jack with this bowl and subsequently subtract weight to approach nearer the jack, this first bowl should be delivered so that, more likely than not, it will come across the centre line. Since the intent is to be intentionally long, the opportunity should not be wasted to possibly trail the jack!

The lead’s 2nd and 3rd bowls will be delivered with better information, both with respect to weight and line, than the first bowl. The first bowl is, in a sense, a ‘sighter’ bowl. It provides feedback about the rink conditions.

This is all that can be expected from the lead that does not possess the mat.

If one’s side does possess the mat, more is possible. It should be prearranged that the skip will decide on jack length: short, intermediate, or long, but the lead could be given authority to choose the mat position. If this permission is granted, the lead should choose the mat position so that whether a short, intermediate, or long jack is called for the jack will finish close to the forward T (2 meters from the front ditch).

Why do this? Because we have already decided the lead’s first bowl is going to be intentionally behind the jack and more likely than not, narrow, and if there is going to be a heightened chance that the jack will be trailed, the closer that trail takes the jack towards the front ditch, the more difficulty for the opposition.

If your side has possession of the mat and your skip calls for a short jack, where should you locate the mat? The answer is 2 meters behind the closest hog line, because from there you can try to roll the jack to the forward T, but even if it is 2 meters short of the T, it will still have traveled the requisite 21 meters (in Canada, 23 meters in some other countries). At the same time, you have 2 meters behind your target length before you are too long and fall into the ditch and give the jack away!

If an intermediate jack is requested, the mat position should be about 5 meters back from the closest hog line. If a long jack is called for, take the mat to the back T.

All this may be well and good, but sometimes you, as lead, will deliver a bowl short of the jack. If your line is still good and your bowl is only a little bit short, you may have a decent shot bowl! You still need to get behind the jack with your remaining bowls. 

The Lead Bowler in Triples

For the lead bowler delivering the first bowl in the end, it needs to be emphasized,: line is not the most important concern, weight is.  If you are within three feet on either side of the jack, that is probably not going to get you a reprimand, but being three feet short may. What one must emphasize is proper depth, and it is your first bowl in the end that is most likely to be wrongly weighted. It is OK to be a yard past the jack, and one should err on the side of being past rather than short. Four feet short is a bad bowl; four feet long can be useful for the development of the head. Four feet short cannot be promoted easily, so it is likely to stay out of the scoring, since the jack has an overwhelmingly greater chance of being moved backward rather than forward during the end. Grassing two bowls three feet past gives the vice and skip some things to work with in developing a scoring situation. A close bowl by a lead in triples rarely survives as the shot bowl. There are too many good bowlers to follow, and a bowl close to the jack makes an excellent target for up-shots. Even if both of the opposition lead’s bowls are 1^st and 2^nd shot, your side’s situation is not too bad so long as your lead bowls are behind the jack!