Tenpin Bowling Going Backwards

dockers

Member
Have just looked at the Averages of bowlers competing for their State or Territory in the Presidents Shield. In these times of equipment & lane condition the majority of averages should be much better, but they are comparable to years ago. Why is this so???. Dockers
 
2 things.

I know that from an NT point of view. The scores here are very low. There is only one centre the highest average in the centre in around 190-195.

Things will change when the lanes are changed to synthetics in mid year.

Second and most valid reason.

Competing for the State team costs a lot of money. Qualifying, taking time off, flights, accommodation, equipment.

Not everyone can do this. I know this seems harsh and I don't mean to offend. But when I was bowling alot of tournaments. The State team was not always the best bowlers in the state, but the best bowlers that could afford it.
 
Exactly right toon, if there was more funding so that bowlers didnt have to fork out so much then the real best bowlers would be representing.
 
The depth of the junior bowlers in not as strong as it was a few years ago. The numbers are down as well and this is affecting the girls more than the boys.

An interesting execise would be to look at the averages that are being bowled at President Shield in the last three years compared to the three years before that.

I don't think that bowling is going backwards it just may be feeling a low point and hopefully there will be some young talent appearing on the lanes soon.
 
Could be any number of reasons for this...

Perhaps these kids are bowling in centres and leagues that lay down some of the harder patterns as they want to improve their skills? Maybe alot of juniors have aged out after last year and we have younger bowlers this time around?

I would be more worried about seeing averages continually on the increase for bowlers of this age and experience level..
 
Not just Pesident Shield. Rachuig has been having the same problem for years. Struggling to fill womens teams. bought in the draft system. Now they have dropped Rachuig to 6 bowlers instead of 7 bowlers. We had 2 women nominate in S.A. couple years ago took 4 bowlers from the draft.

Dont mean to be harsh also, but if you have to take 3 or 4 bowlers from the draft from bowlers that havent made there own top 6 in there State roll offs when most states dont have some of there top bowlers rolling off your not going to be to competitive come October. $2000 - $2500 for a week in Sydney is a lot of money to fork out just to turn up & make up the numbers. Add another grand + to turn up for Seniors week before that & it gets very expensive.

Seriously thinking about spending the 3 grand this year in December and going the Vegas for a fortnight for the 2012 Seniors tournament. Better value.
 
I think it's got a lot to do with that a pattern is put down for roll offs these days and juniors are so use to bowling on your everyday house shot.

I'm a strong believer on if you train you will succeed and a lot of juniors these days just bowl there league once week and don't bother training.

But yes I agree averages have dropped, when I bowled president shield you had to average low to high 190's even 200 to make the team, these days you can make it on a 160 average
 
Locally (in the ACT) the problem is in numbers. *back in my day* we took away a squad of about 25 bowlers for nationals including the shield team, and most of them were 15+. Most of my team this year is younger, much younger, and the fringe players I have are young too. This is due to a decline in the popularity of the sport in general as well as a lack of effort on the part of all involved from the state association (which I am the president of, I'm not slinging at anybody here), the centres, and the bowlers too in keeping numbers up. AMF have allowed junior leagues to dwindle. ACTTBA allowed AMF to allow the junior leagues to dwindle. The bowlers, their parents, their coaches etc etc aren't doing anything to add any interest in the sport.

Times are changing here though, watch out for the ACT in a few years!
 
I think, like Jeff says we have to look at a lot of factors - between 70s and 90s ATBC had funding from airlines and used to give grants back to the states and territories to help get their players to Nationals. Some of the remote states used to get up to $10,000 back per team and this helped to cut costs. TBA does not have that support and with current membership levels cannot give the states anything. The youth tournament has been introduced and some of the older juniors between 16 and 18 compete in youth, it is less time away and generally cheaper. We have to compete with a lot of other sports and the IT world now and yes a trip to Nationals costs closer to $3,000 now for most state team players. Parents cannot afford this and since the timing of Junior Nationals has changed some of the parents do not want time away from highschool so some States and Territories cannot get enough competitors due to the school holidays. In the NT we have 2 centres, one still has guardian on wood so how good do you think the averages are? Not great. We do not get to practice on synthetics that have the Nationals conditions unless we travel to ranked events or Singapore which we do - more cost - luckily we love the sport.
 
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