Bowls Tasmania has announced a changed line up for the Tasmanian Tridents when they compete in Bowls Australia’s Bowls Premier League (BPL#17) at the Moama Bowling Club on the New South Wales-Victoria border, 20 -24 February 2022. The Bowls Premier League is the sport’s made-for-television, showpiece event, staged biannually, at Queensland’s Club Pine Rivers in November and Moama in February. The Bowls Premier League is the Twenty20 of bowls and has been designed to change people’s perception of the sport. It is fast, it is loud, it attracts the world’s best bowlers, and it appeals to non-bowlers who may have seen bowls in a different light. BPL#17 will be shown live on Fox Sports, Kayo and Sky Sport NZ from 4pm-11pm AEST each night, with additional live-streaming through Facebook during the daytime rounds.
While each of the ten franchises participating in the BPL are permitted to include marque players in their teams, it is Bowls Tasmania policy that Tasmania Tridents players must be resident and playing pennant in Tasmania. Also policy is player rotation to expose Tasmania’s elite bowlers to one of the highest profile competitions in Australia. Trevallyn’s Michael Sims will replace the Burnie’s Mark Nitz in the team for BPL#17, joining current team members, dual Commonwealth Games gold medallist and world champion Rebecca Van Asch, and current Tasmanian Fours Championship winner, Pathways Jackaroo Taelyn Male, with one-time Australian Jackaroo Mark Strochnetter continuing in his coaching duties for BPL#17.
Sims will make Tridents history as the first player to be brought into the team following the team’s inception into the BPL at the commencement of BPL14 earlier last year. The 26-year-old brings a wealth of state experience to the tournament having been a state representative since 2013 and representing the state on 97 occasions. In addition, he is a multiple winner of Bowls Tasmania’s Male Bowler of the Year award, and Bowls Australia’s Under-18 Male Bowler of the Year in 2014. He was part of the winning Tasmanian BPL Cup team in 2022.
Last Sunday Tridents team members Rebecca Van Asch and Michael Sims, with their coach, Mark Strochnetter, conducted a coaching clinic for bowlers at the Howrah Bowls Club, where an enthusiastic group participated in a range of drills and skills activities conducted by the Tridents. The third member of the Tridents team, Taelyn Male, was unable to attend the clinic due to bowls commitments in Melbourne.