The following information was provided by Bowls Tasmania to regional secretaries on 3 December 2021.
At the last RCC meeting in September 2021 discussion took place on the future of State Pennant Finals.
The BTAS Board had already advised that it will discontinue Thursday State Pennant Finals but will continue with Saturday State Pennant Finals. At the RCC meeting, representatives from BTS and BNW advised that they wanted to see the end of all State Pennant Finals. BN advised that it wanted to continue with Saturday State Pennant Finals and would consider playing four rinks if necessary. It was agreed that this matter would be considered at a future BTAS Board meeting and BTAS would come back to the regions with a way forward. At its meeting in October 2021, the BTAS Board agreed to stand by its previous decision to continue to hold Saturday State Pennant Finals.
At the RCC meeting, BN advised that East Coast is too good to play in Division 4 in Saturday State Pennant Finals and would like them to be promoted to Division 3. BNW did not agree with this suggestion as it would mean that its Division 3 Premiers would be relegated to Division 4. An option that BN was considering putting to its members was that the BN Division 3 Premiers play off against the East Coast Premiers with the winner representing BN in Division 3 Saturday State Pennant Finals. If this happened there would only be BN and BTS in Division 6. Another alternative was to promote East Coast to Division 3 and play a round-robin for Division 3 State Pennant Finals. At the RCC meeting, it was agreed to wait and see what BN decides before considering this matter further.
At its meeting in November 202, the Bowls North Board decided that BN would prefer for the East Coast to play in Division 3 in the State Pennant Finals series. The BN Board agreed to let BTAS make the final decision and BN further advised that it would abide with the decision that is made.
At its meeting on 15 November 2021, the BTAS Board determined that East Coast will be promoted to Saturday State Pennant Division 3 Pennant Finals which will be played as a four-team round-robin event. That will mean that the Saturday Division 6 State Pennant Final will be a single game play-off between the BTS and BN premiers.
Rob McGuire
Chief Executive Officer
Bowls Tasmania