Weekly Region Wrap: Wimmera Bowls Region
The Wimmera Bowls Region Wimmera region has four playing areas; the WPA, Northern Wimmera, Grampians, and North Central.
Clubs Chalambar Golf & Bowls Club and Warracknabeal are consistent features in State Pennant Championships. The clubs are small in Wimmera, despite the area itself being so vast. This often leads to long travel times between clubs to get to matches. The WPA is interesting in Division 1. If you’re based in Horsham, you could have an away game 5 minutes down the road, or an hour away in Nhill or Edenhope. The WPA Pennant play 25 ends with a short tea break.
“Travel can be an issue, but a lot of people carpool and chip in for petrol. They do it cause they want to do it. Travel distance is a big one as most clubs’ maximum distance is about an hour and a half,” says Stephen Harris, Horsham Golf Bowls Club.
The greens in Wimmera vary from sand filled carpets to grass greens. A lot of work is done by volunteers to maintain the greens.
“This year we had our pennant playoffs for the region. We were pretty competitive. There was a bit of difference in the greens. We’ve got some sand-filled carpets and some are newer than others. Three of the clubs in Horsham have the same types of greens. Sometimes people get used to the surfaces a bit too late in the game. It can take you a bit of time to get used to. Each club has a different surface and it can take a bit to get used to.”
Horsham Golf are a powerhouse in the WPA. In the last 3 years they’ve won 2 out of 3 grand finals and currently sit on top of the ladder 7-1. Their only loss so far this season was a 1 shot defeat to the 2nd place Horsham City. With only 6 rounds to go, they’re looking to lock down top position.
“We’ve won two out of the last three grand finals. We’ve changed our team a little bit, got a couple of younger blokes in there and we seem to be going along really smoothly.”
“We’re quietly confident we’ll get there and we’re confident we’ll shake it up. Our div 2 side is in the same spot and our div 3 side is going well being 4th on the ladder.”
“On the day, depending where you play, anything can happen. We’re confident that wherever we play we can adapt to the surface. We’ve got a few blokes that go around and play in different tournaments to get used to the surfaces.”
“We’ve had a couple of people do training courses and coaching courses and they’ve helped. There might be 1 thing out of the 10 that they pick up that really helps them.”
“You play your match, you watch your teammates play theirs. You go inside and have a chat and have a drink. It’s a great sport.”
The Weekly Region Wrap is a new weekly feature of Regional Victorian Pennant. If you have an interesting region story and photo, please send it to cooper@bowlsvic.org.au
