THE local pennant bowling scene is set for a major shake-up this season.
Creation of a new premier competition covering the Murray Valley and Northern District playing areas was confirmed last week.
The Northern Valley pennant competition will encompass the best teams from across the two playing areas.
Kerang, Kerang Golf, Barham and Cohuna Golf were confirmed as the four clubs to take part from the Northern District Playing Area.
They will join Murray Valley clubs Murray Downs and Racecourse to play the inaugural season of the new competition.
Bowls Victoria northern Victoria country manager Josh Thornton said he expected the new competition would raise the standard of bowls across the region.
“Something we’ve tried to do and the key part of getting the new competition off the ground was to try and level out the playing field across both playing areas,” Thornton told the Gannawarra Times.
“We had some smaller clubs across both the playing areas that were battling to maintain Division 1 sides and were coming up against clubs that were far stronger than they were.
“By doing this, those clubs can feel like they can compete again.
“It’s a great result for those smaller clubs because they are going to be able to compete better, which will have other positive flow-on effects with regard to player retention and morale around their clubs.
“The other positive effect is that we’ve also created a competition where the better bowlers, in theory, will be playing against each other, and that will hopefully lift the standard of bowls across the region as well.”
It was expected the Northern District playing area weekend pennant competition would still compete across three divisions.
The final make-up of which clubs move up to fill the vacancies was to be determined later, as it would with the Murray Valley Playing Area weekend pennant.
Expressions of interest for the new Northern Valley Pennant competition closed last Friday.
The six interested clubs enabled the first season to get under way in early October.
While the first season was set in stone, Thornton said he hoped expansion for the fledgling competition could happen as early as next year.
“Ideally, we’d like to have eight clubs competing, and we still want eight, but we are going to go with six for the upcoming season,” Thornton said.
“If in 12 months’ time there are two clubs who put their hand up and say we want in, then they will be included because we want an eight-team competition.
“If we have eight clubs established, then that opens up the possibility of us including a promotion-and-relegation system too, which would allow clubs to aspire to move up into the competition, but that is a long way off yet.
“Eventually it will be the best eight teams across the two playing areas, whatever that looks like at this point is unknown. Whether its six from one area and two from another, or if its four and four, who knows.
“The idea is that we have the best eight sides playing against each other and try to have an even competition.”
The grand final of the new competition will be scheduled for the Sunday following the Northern District and Murray Valley weekend pennant competitions, creating a showcase event for the region.
While there had been some criticism of the new competition, most of the feedback had been positive, according to Thornton.
“The clubs that didn’t entertain the prospect of going into the new competition, but understood why it was happening, they’re all quite happy because they see some solace in what’s going to happen, in that they feel that they will be playing against very similar teams,” Thornton said.
“The six clubs that will be playing in the new competition, there is definitely a fair bit of excitement ahead of the first season.
“You’re always going to get your naysayers and we can handle that, but going forward we can always review it at the end of the year.
“Cricket has changed over the last 12 months with the Kerang clubs coming up to play in Swan Hill, it also happened with footy decades ago – sport at a local level is changing and its time for us to change, too.
“We need to plan for the future and its better for us to be proactive rather than reactive.”
