Sport
4 October, 2024
Saturday pennant returns with revised divisions, inclusion of Bridgewater side
The Saturday pennant is ready to roll back into action tomorrow, with 17 teams across two divisions prepared to bowl themselves to glory.
Highland Tartan will look to make it four premierships on the trot in division one this season — while they will have two fewer teams to contend with following the decision to make division one a six-team competition, it’s expected last year’s runners-up Dunolly Blue and Talbot Gold will be hot on their heels.
Dunolly Gold and Newstead Blue will look to bounce back after their relegation from the top division by challenging reigning premiers Highland Gold in the expanded division two competition, now consisting of 11 teams.
Highland Bowls secretary Jason Arthur said he is looking forward to a hard-fought season.
“I’m excited for the new season — I’m pretty keen just to get back out onto the greens as I know a lot of others are,” he said.
“I think this [new] format is really going to increase the competitive nature of the competition as a whole.
“One of the reasons we knocked [division one] back to six teams is because the last few seasons, the bottom two teams in division one weren’t doing very well.
“We floated the idea of three divisions earlier in the year with six in division one, six in division two and five in division three, but we decided to expand on division two to give it a bit more of a competitive nature.”
Another talking point heading into the new season is the addition of Bridgewater, which Arthur said will be an exciting new element in the division two competition.
“The addition of Bridgewater has been received really well from all of the goldfields players,” he said.
“There was the discussion of having them play at each club just to get a feel of the goldfields because both their top side and their second side are in Bendigo, and now they are moving their second side across to the goldfields to see how it goes.
“It seems like a lot of the Bridgewater players are pretty keen to come over and see how they go in the goldfields as well.”
The division one season begins with a tantalising preliminary final rematch between Dunolly Blue and Talbot Gold at Dunolly.
Dunolly Blue was able to get the victory in the thrilling encounter last year by two shots despite Talbot winning two of the three rinks.
Hat-trick premiers Highland Tartan will hope to begin their campaign with a victory at home against Maryborough Golf Blue, who will look to make a finals appearance this season after missing out by just eight points to Avoca Red.
Avoca Red will open their season by welcoming Highland White to Avoca, who will strive to improve from their sixth place finish in 2023.
Meanwhile, in division two, Highland Gold will begin their defence with a trip to Avoca, recently relegated Dunolly Gold will visit Maldon and new team Bridgewater will host fellow relegated side Newstead Blue.
Their sister team Newstead White will open at home against last year’s semi-finalist Maryborough Golf, Dunolly Green will take on the team that beat Maryborough Golf in that semi-final, Carisbrook at home, who will look to do one better this year following their preliminary final loss to last year’s runners-up Talbot, who have the bye.