Kyabram will face the bottom three teams from last season’s Goulburn Valley Playing Area division one pennant bowls competition to start its 2024-25 campaign.
And they will do so with not only four new skippers, but at least seven new division one players — 2023-24 skips Brent Reiner, David and Josh Cartwright all wearing new colours this season.
Reiner will play for Bundoora and under the new Bowls Victoria playing conditions will have Shepparton Golf as his ‘home club’. The Cartwrights will play in the Murray Playing Area with Wunghnu.
Several metropolitan rounds will be played on Fridays and Sundays this year, which will allow players to return to their home clubs for pennant competition on Saturday.
Reining club champion Henry Boswood, and his brother Charlie, are playing this season with Port Melbourne. They will remain full members of the Kyabram club.
The brothers won the state under-18 pairs championship last year.
After finishing the 2023-24 home and away season third, behind eventual grand finalists Tallygaroopna and Shepparton Golf, the Bombers lost to Shepparton Park by 14 shots in the semi-final.
They will open the new season on October 19 against seventh-ranked Mooroopna, which won only three games last season. Then they meet two other teams they beat twice during last season’s the home and away rounds.
A perennial finalist of recent seasons, Kyabram beat Mooroopna by 17 shots in last year’s round three match-up (claiming all four rinks) and repeated the result in round 10 — winning by 31 shots.
Mooroopna has, however, recruited heavily in the off season and is expected to be a big improver.
In the second round of the new season the team is pitted against Euroa, which also managed just three wins during 2023-24 and finished sixth. There was a big gap between the top five and bottom three teams, fifth-ranked Tatura winning four more games than sixth-placed Euroa.
Euroa was competitive against Kyabram the first time round, losing by just 10 shots in round nine and won two of the four rinks. The Magpies suffered a 22-shot loss in the round two meeting.
After facing Shepparton Park in round three this year - the team which knocked it out of last year’s finals — Kyabram will round off its first month of competition by tackling bottom team East Shepparton.
The Eagles won just the one game last year and challenged Kyabram twice before losing by 12 shots in round five and by nine shots in round 12.
Last year’s losing grand finalist, Shepparton Golf, will be Kyabram’s round five opponent and the very next week Kyabram will face reigning premier Tallygaroopna.
Mal Williams will start his 25th season of competition after finishing 2023-24 as the second-ranked bowler in the top flight.
He has been a member of 11 Kyabram premierships, the last being a decade ago, and partnered with Charlie Boswood (63 years his junior) to win the Kyabram club pairs competition.
Williams had an 11-3 record as a lead bowler for Brent Reiner last season, who finished as the third ranked bowler (and top skip) for the Allan Matheson Shield season.
Three other Kyabram bowlers were ranked inside the top 10 bowlers last season - Rob Anset (5th), Greg Shilling (6th) and Josh Cartwright (7th, also the third-ranked skip in the competition with an 11-3 record).
Anset bowled lead for Josh Cartwright last year and Shilling was his third.
For a majority of last season Reiner, Josh Cartwright, his father David, and Rob George were the Kyabram skips. David Cartwright finished the season with an 8-6 win/loss record and George with a 7-7 return.
Williams and Shilling are likely to take on skipping roles, with George continuing in the role and Noel Reddrop also filling the key position.
Bob Mason, Jack Portia, Ken Risstrom, Chris Preddy, John Hausler, Graeme King, Joe Greco and Chris Williams, along with Mary Greco and Jennifer Dixon, are likely to be considered for division one selection.
Kyabram has an amazing mix of players, the youngest bowler in its pennant ranks being just 13 years-old, while there are also five 90 plus-year-olds on its roster.