Jack-hi article No. 3

August edition 2005

Change to three rinks for Saturday Pennants in One Red

In my two previous articles I have written about the dominance of the Division One Red competition over the last thirty years by two clubs, namely Cockburn and Doubleview and secondly about players being paid to play pennants for their respective clubs.

This article covers the changes to the current format I would like to see adopted for our One Red competition, notwithstanding the view of some that it is the best Pennant competition in Australia. In my view our current One Red competition is in fact in need of an overhaul in order that the division be more competitive.

History shows that generally, the two One White sides that gain promotion to One Red, struggle to survive and are demoted the following year due to the vast difference in strength between these Divisions. Though there are exceptions from time to time due to good recruitment.

With the One Red ten-team competition so lopsided and the top sides playing each other only twice in a season there maybe only 10 really competitive games for these clubs. Last season’s results confirm that there are simply not 160 players of genuine One Red standard in the competition!! The performance of the bottom two or three sides supports this argument. The experience of Safety Bay highlights the inadequacies of the present format.

When we compare the number of State players who played in One Red last season, there were only eleven of them and six of those were from one club. The other five State players were spread over the other nine One Red division clubs. The five remaining State players were in lower grades or in country teams.
This year we see topflight players dropping down the grades to play at clubs that are endevouring to enhance their playing strength. This has the effect of lowering the standard of One Red yet again.

As an alternative to the current Pennant format for One Red only, I would like to see an eight side 14 game season however at present, this can’t happen because the clubs have voted 41 to 31 to retain the current 10 team setup back in the year 2000. I am almost certain that if the players from all divisions were polled they would clearly want a shorter season.

The next best thing, in the short term, is to make the Saturday One Red competition more evenly contested would be to reduce the sides to three rinks instead of the current four. This would mean that forty players currently in One Red would not be required and would need to play in a lower division at their club, or otherwise transfer to another One Red club where they might be considered or required for a spot in that Club’s top side.

The reduction to three rinks would immediately cut the depth of the top sides and increase the depth of lower sides who, with the inclusion/
Recruitment of better players to their list thereby making the game on Saturday a harder contest.

There will always be top and bottom teams no matter how much we try to even up the competition but, at least, the bottom sides would be far more competitive. If three rinks on Saturday were to be adopted it is likely we would see a change from the dominance by a couple of Clubs over many years and could see the One Red Pennant spread a little more evenly around the clubs.

The Saturday pennant competition would be far stronger than the mid-week competition that has a three-rink structure, because the best players are available to play on Saturday where as not all of them are available for the mid-week games.
The three – rink format would benefit the State in terms of lifting the standard of lawn bowls as the matches would be more evenly contested and then, maybe, it could be justifiably claimed to be the best pennant competition in Australia.

The new format should, at least, be trailed and if found to be not producing the desired effect, we could revert back to the current system or try the 14 game season format that many would like to see occur.