The majority of Goulburn Valley Playing Area weekend pennant bowlers will have to wait one more week to begin their 2022-23 campaigns, with the association making the decision to cancel all matches scheduled for Saturday.
This comes as wild weather continues to descend on the Goulburn Valley, with sustained heavy rainfall having many areas at risk of flooding.
As a result a number of roads across the region have been closed and the association decided that its “Duty of Care” to all players and members made it irresponsible to forge on with the weekend pennant matches.
A disappointing result for all involved with Goulburn Valley bowls, association secretary Stephen McGregor outlined the reasons why it was forced to make this decision.
“We have taken a duty of care with our players, because we’ve got such a large area there were a number of risks we took into account,” McGregor said.
“Travelling to and from the games was a big one, with a lot of roads being closed and flooded, we didn’t want people getting stuck in places and unable to get home.
“So, in the end, it was a pretty easy decision to call off all matches and the reception among all clubs and players has been positive.”
Along with the risks associated with travelling to and from matches the conditions of greens across the region was another major factor taken into account when making the call to cancel.
McGregor said the heavy rainfall would have made it impossible for clubs to prepare their playing facilities adequately.
“With the grass greens there would have been no way they would have been able to be rolled out with all the rainfall,” he said.
“Obviously there are the indoor synthetic greens that could be used at some clubs, but we felt it was best to just call every game off and start fresh next week.”
As for what happens with the scheduled round one fixtures, all matches bar those in division five will be shifted to the association’s spare day on Saturday, December 17.
Division five matches were excluded from the postponement due to the fact that it was the only weekend pennant competition to begin a fortnight ago — with the extra fixtures making it unable to shift games to the spare day.
While all weekend pennant matches have been called off, there will still be some bowls action in the Goulburn Valley this weekend, with Shepparton Park putting its hand up to host men’s State Triples, originally scheduled for Stanhope Bowls Club, at its indoor facility on Sunday.
At this stage all midweek pennant matches and women’s State Triples fixtures next week will go ahead as scheduled.