Van Asch well prepared for Commonwealth Games
Tasmania’s multiple world champion lawn bowler Rebecca Van Asch has detailed the challenges facing her Australian team as it attempts to win a Commonwealth Games gold medal in the Northern Hemisphere for the first time.
The 34-year-old Invermay bowler has been entrusted with the same dual role that yielded two gold medals four years ago, playing as skip for the triples (with lead Lynsey Clarke and second Natasha Van Eldik) and third in the fours (with lead Kristina Krstic, Clarke second and Van Eldik skip).
Van Asch is confident the Jackaroos can break new ground on the familiar Victoria Park greens of Leamington Spa which they know present unique challenges.
“We spent two weeks there in May. It was our first time back for a couple of years and really good to play on those greens,” she said. “We played a six-nation and four-nation competitive matchplay.
“It’s just getting the rhythm and mindset of the style you need to play on slower greens that we’re not used to in Australia.”
Van Asch, who is also Bowls Australia’s high-performance manager and formerly Bowls Tasmania’s chief executive, explained the contrast in conditions between the hemispheres.
“English grass is longer than we’re used to, it’s a different type and they get a lot more wet weather so the greens are a lot slower and not as finely manicured as in Australia,” she said.
“They generally take 10 seconds whereas in Australia it is between 16 and 18 seconds.
“The bowl flies at full speed then stops dead, whereas we’re used to it taking forever to get up there.
“It is a bit confusing because when we say it’s fast, it’s actually slow in time. So, if we say 18 seconds, that’s a quick green even though it’s slower in time.
“It really is a significant advantage. We change our technique for it. We’re more forceful and get more power and the mindset of our gameplan is very different.
“We also use different equipment with a wide bias bowl which takes a lot of the green. If we use our normal bowls we’d just be straight up the middle but this means we can get around other bowls and still get back to the target. It certainly adds an extra element to it.”
The Australian team is benefitting from twice visiting the venue before the pandemic and attempting to replicate English conditions for competitions back home.
“A lot of countries commented on us going there in 2018 and 2019 but then COVID hit and we were glad we had that opportunity which we have not had previously and so feel a lot luckier than teams before us because we’ve been able to put more preparation in.
“At the Aus Open in Queensland the greens had been adapted to replicate UK conditions and we’ve had all our training camps on those greens. We were using a croquet green which doesn’t run as smooth or as fast as our greens - the grass is a bit longer and thicker.
“We tried to do that before the Glasgow Commonwealth Games and did not quite replicate the surface but this is much closer.
“Even on our slower greens in Tasmania, it never gets that slow and we still get turn.
It’s so different in the UK to what we get, even in Tasmania.
“We feel we are one of the most prepared Australian teams ever sent to the Northern Hemisphere and take all our experience of playing UK greens and we are defending champions so we know we have a target on our back.”