Jack-hi article No. 1

February edition 2005

What is the future of men’s One Red Pennants?

We have seen the dominance of One Red by Cockburn for around 15/20 years being almost unbeatable over that period of time. Now we have the same scenario with Doubleview who have dominated the competition for the past few years.
Cockburn started out from 6th division with the playing group and won their way up to One Red status with pretty much the same group of players with an occasional import.
Doubleview started out in One Gold with two of the best players to have played the game, and then recruited some top shelf players (State players) along the way as they continued their march toward One Red to become the force they are today.

We have now had two sides dominate the competition, winning the final so many times. Very few other sides have won the final over the last 30 years.
What does the future hold from here for One Red pennants? To me it is very bleak as we see the strength of Doubleview is simply too much for the opposition to overcome.

Looking into the future I guess that Doubleview will win the next 10 premierships from this point of time on. They have some of the best players that have ever played the game and in bowling terms they are still very young. Also any recruit to the club is generally a very good up and coming player, not forgetting the players they also develop from within the club.

Sometime back one Doubleview player said that they were the best recruiters. Recruiting top players including the pick of the best youngsters is not a problem for the club. Who would knock back an invite to play at Doubleview if Dennis Katunarich or John Rainoldi would ask you to play for them and their many other State players? This also helps to come under the State selectors’ radar. Again there is nothing wrong with this the way things are at the moment as it helps keep the Doubleview playing list strong.

Is there a way possible to spread the players around a bit more than it is now? Not the way it is at present, because of the current set up. Any player can play with whom they like and if all the State players wish to play for the same club, they can, if they chose to do so, and one might ask, why shouldn’t they, after all it is an amateur competition, in which only a few players are paid a small amount to play. However the One Red pennant competition is much the poorer with such dominance.

Some quarters suggest limiting each club to two State players, however this is not possible as Doubleview are firmly entrenched with their setup. Who would have to leave to go elsewhere? Difficulties are that many players would not want to travel to the more distant clubs like Safety Bay or to other clubs that might be badly managed or with poor greens.

Of course there are many more problems with the concept of limiting clubs to two State players than I have room to discuss here.

Had Bowls WA been aware of what was happening at the time of Doubleview’s emergence as a power in lawn bowls and the effect it would have on the competition, it might have been able to nip it in the bud.

Still to be fair, Doubleview were trying to overcome the great teams from Cockburn, and they were breaking no rules. It took a while but they finally managed to do it as father time caught up with Cockburn.

The only way from here would be to change the way the game is played with new rules to limit a side from becoming overly strong, not by weakening the competition but by spreading the talent around. It would be fair to say that there are not 160 One Red quality players and that is the reason we see such a difference in strength between the clubs and Doubleview.

It has been said that the pennant competition in Perth is the best in Australia. I disagree, it is more lopsided than it should be - how can it bring out the best competition for our State players as they need to be under the pump far more than they are at the moment in pennants.

There are some clubs that will never have a State player. When they arrive via promotion from One White they are up against it with the quality of their players versus the likes of Doubleview How many times do we see a newly promoted club to One Red last only for the season and get demoted again.

One day in the future someone will come up with an alternative and they will say why didn’t we act earlier to spread the talent more evenly around the clubs thus creating more interest than we have now. Each season is so predictable as to who will win the pennant.

These comments are not meant to offend Doubleview in any way, as it is an extremely well run club. All I am looking at is to see if we can share the game around and have a more even competition than we do at present.

Sherro