Say It Like You Mean It?

When I was a kid, my younger sister would torment me, most often through the dark art of confidence and conviction.

As an example, even though I was not the one that left a tablespoon of milk in the milk container in the fridge (we all know the truth Jennifer!) when mom would question who was too lazy to rinse out the container and put it in the trash my sister gleefully pointed directly at me and said 'it was HIM.'

Here's the odd thing, because she said it with such conviction I actually began to think 'well, maybe it was me.'

What does that have to do with lawn bowling?

I was recently playing in a fours competition in the vice skip position, we had just completed delivering our bowls and the teams walked to the head end. Their skip was up first and delivered his bowl, it ended up about a mat length away from the jack; the bowl was on its side looking like it could fall-in, and had we been counting it likely would have been shot. As my skip was about to step on the mat to deliver his bowl their vice skip spoke aggressively.

"30 seconds. Your skip cannot bowl for 30 seconds."

This is ofcourse is a misinterpretation of the rule which states that after the FINAL BOWL of the end has come to rest the SKIP (and only the skip) may ask for 30 seconds to see if his bowl will 'fall-in' prior to determining who is shot. It was also no longer this teams head! But I digress.

So what happened in this case? I was so taken aback that I stood back while the 30 seconds elapsed!! Why? Because the proclimation was said with such confidence I thought 'maybe he was right.'

The funny part about this is that I am in the process of studying to become an umpire, I have the rule book and I have poured over all 117 pages of it and KNOW this rule.

It's not the first time I've seen this.

I was watching a game where a skip had driven the jack into the ditch. During its regular course of travel the jack entered the ditch hit the boundary peg and as a result came to rest outside the boundary peg. The argument the skip who drove the jack to the ditch was, the jack must be placed where it first touched down inside the boundary marker in the ditch and not placed at the two metre mark because the boundary peg caused the jack to divert its course.

The discussion was animated and as they knew I was in the process of studying for my umpiring license they asked me for a 'ruling.'

As the jack had come to rest outside the boundary marker, regardless of the contact the jack made on the boundary peg, the jack was out of bounds and the conditions of play required an out of bounds jack to be set on the 2 metre mark.

Easy peasy.

But in listening to the discussion one could have been convinced that maybe, just maybe, the jack SHOULD have been put back in the ditch where it first entered and in fact both skips were a hairs breath away from declaring the entire end dead (to the detriment of the non-offending skip who had bowls nearer the 2 meter mark) because they could not agree.

I struggle with players who think they know the rules and then try to use

their flawed interpretation to leverage an advantage. Now, I get it, the game can be competitive and there can be a lot riding on the outcome. I also acknowledge that reading the rule book is not a high priority for most players which is why there are umpires in the first place.

But the integrity of the game should be paramount. If you don't know, ask (just don't ask my sister).