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Did we have the wrong team in Melbourne?

(The Citizen - March 31, 2006)

So we only came back from the Commonwealth Games with two bronze medals. So maybe we had the wrong team.
That is the attitude I am picking up from players and pundits alike about the South African bowls team’s poor showing in the Games this year. Everybody seems to want to blame the selectors again. Well, I suppose they must carry some of the blame but there are other factors involved here.
Let’s clear the selections out of our minds at the start by ask ing some questions. Like, why were Rika Lynn and Susan Nel switched with Nel playing in the pairs with Colleen Webb and Lynn presumably leading in the triples? If memory serves right the original selection was Lynn and Webb who suprisingly got the selectors nod ahead of the Central Gauteng pairing of Sharon Glenn and Esme Steyn who has done so well in the African States.
Result of the new pairing? They finished 13^th out of 18 teams competing.
The changes obviously upset the triples but according to reports, (they were very few from Melbourne), they were unlucky to lose the quarterfinal to Jersey.
It was again left to Lorna Trigwell to bring some credit to the women’s team. In winning bronze in the singles, she maintained her high ranking in world bowls and avenged her World Bowls final defeat last year by Margaret Johnston in taking the medal.
Something that filtered back to me was the matter of professionalism. With a Malaysian woman winning the singles it proved the point of professionalism. The whole Malaysian team were on fully paid leave from their jobs at home and even had been in Australia since January getting accustomed to the playing conditions!
The excitement of seeing Neil Burkett, Gippo Vermeulen and Eric Johannes snatching the bronze medal away from England in the play-off was gripping TV but it could have so easily gone the other way. Why the England skip elected to allow his middleman and then himself those drives at the head to upset the jack still mystifies. A simple draw might have been a better alternative.
We heard little of the other three men in the team at this end but Shaun Addinall and Kevin Campbell did reach the quarterfinals of the pairs losing 2-0 to Malta while Gerry Baker also got that far before falling to Stephen Farish of England.
Will there be any sort of statement from Bowls South Africa? We hope so given there was so much interest in the team’s performance. What plans do you suppose they have for future internationals teams?
Bowls SA president Piet Breitenbach is just back from Australia where he attended a World Bowls Limited meeting and he may be able to enlighten us further.
Two things he may consider: A fully professional attitude to players and officials by getting sponsors behind the South African sides and, is it necessary for there to be separate men and women managers?

IT was interesting to attend an innovative seminar recently on the Strand on development where a gentleman, who is going to make quite a difference in bowls in my estimation, gave a talk on bowls marketing.
Throwing most of the conventions about development and recruiting for new members out of the window, Dr Jannie Malan for Van der Stel boiled it all down to marketing and what we were doing wrong.
We do not know how to market the game in our clubs because we do not have a plan or a package to offer new or existing members.
Most clubs, if not all, have a set subscription fee and that’s that. No negotiations, no allowance for age or financial state. No quibble. Yes, as he said, we do have a package to offer, Bit it is lousy.
We need to look again at the needs of our members and create products that will bring people to our clubs to play bowls and eventually join. There is much more to a bowls club that just playing bowls in the leagues and tabs-in. People should be encouraged to come to the club and treat it as a home from home, a sociable place to use.
However, the biggest part of Malan’s message to bowls clubs is that clubs need a sliding scale of subscription fees, a schedule of fees to suit all prospective and present members.
He used examples of family packages, those for scholars, university students, pensioners and the needy, who may be more attracted to join a club if they realised they could afford what is offered and not refuse to do so because they are faced with anything from R300 to R1000 a year that they cannot afford while they would like to play the game.
Adding my own thought: There is also the issue of affiliation fees. Why do bowlers who play only in club games and have no interest in being competitive, have to pay them? Here there is also room for some sort of sliding scale.

THE bowls web site www.yourbowls.com is back on line after installation of a hotline by Telkom and the good news is that the draw for the men’s national to in Cape Town is available. The women’s draw for the Pretoria tournament is expected early next week. The draw can also be accessed on Bowls South Africa’s website at www.bowlssa.co.za

Younger players benefit by absence of stars

The Citizen - April 28, 2006

Several districts playing in the annual inter-districts tournament in Johannesburg were denuded by the unavailability of many players, but this has been to the benefit of many others who have the opportunity to further their own causes.
The absence of some players has definitely shown in the form of some teams, more particularly Western Province where they have lost four of their top players to retirement and lack of leave left for bowls has become obvious.
Without Neil Burkett, (in Australia), Eric Johannes (no longer available), Kevin Campbell (reportedly retired) and Shaun Addinall (no more leave) they are much less the team they have been.. However, this is not say that the team put together has not acquitted itself well and the younger players drafted into the side have coped admirably with the task.
Not least of these is 40-year-old Peter Harvey, son of one of South Africa’s greatest bowlers, Tommy Harvey, who passed away at the age of 42 in the prime of his bowls career. Just to watch the son play one sees the father in him and that recognizable push delivery is so evident in the son.
Western Province manager, Bobby Cron said Harvey would soon be skipping one of the WP teams in inter-district tournaments.
It was also fortuitous for Western Province that former international Alan Lofthouse was able to make himself available to skip one of the WP fours after it became obvious Neil Burkett would not be back from Australia in time . His experience at this and international level has been a definite factor in helping the WP younger players..
There is a lot of youth in this tournament not least of all from Bloemfontein where we have Clinton Roets, Wayne Perry – both already internationals – Handre Marais who made such an impressions in gaining a bronze medal in the SA Masters, together with Wayne York and Jarred Oracki. With this talent, the future of the game in Bloemfontein looks very alive and well, if not now, as they lead their section after the sixth of the nine rounds.

Talk of younger players brings us to thoughts about upcoming international events and the national selectors are expected to go for youth when they pick their sides for the African States tournament in August. They are due to announce their sides at the end of the inter-districts this evening (Friday).
When I say going for youth I apply that more to the men than the women for there is a definite lack of younger players of established caliber among the women, a matter that should receive the urgent consideration of national and district executives.

So with youth in mind what do you think – and I expect brickbats – of my side for the African States.
Men: Fours: Brian Dixon, Wayne Perry, Duane Abrahams and Handre Marais. Singles: Nic Rusling.
Women: Fours: Loraine Victor, Cheryl Cox, Colleen Webb and Esme Steyn, although I would like to see Leone Durand, recently returned to the game among those names. For the singles there is only Lorna Trigwell.

Men’s national tournament chair Nicky Parker has been at the inter-provincials as a spectator and tells me all is in readiness for the tournament that begins in Cape Town on May 13 with the pairs competition. Headquarters is at Constantia.

One thing the inter-provincials have brought out is that there are some better bowlers on the national executive. National president Piet Breitenbach skips one of the two North West fours while executive member Tys Pringle has the same job for Limpopo.