Petanque tip returns. Petanque a game to widen your expectations!

Petanque a game to widen your expectations!

Petanque is an aggressive game. Bowls is a gentle game. Scoring is the same principle for both games. Every boule closer than the closest oppositions gets you a point. Therefore, the scoring area is key. You want it to be as big as possible when you are trying to score and as small as possible when the opposition are scoring. That is why petanque is so aggressive. A close boule early in the end is shot straight away. In bowls each player plays in turn so they try to cover the oppositions bowls. This limits any end to only 1 maybe two points. Petanque full houses of three in singles or 6 in doubles and triples can happen in any game but very rare in bowls. So why are we comparing the two sports. Well some players play petanque as if they are playing bowls. This is a disaster in our sport but it takes a lot of work to shake off the bowls way and adopt the petanque way. Shooting in petanque can be done early in the end. It could be done with every one of your teams boule. Bowls fire usually at the end when no other options exist. It would never happen with every bowl because your team would be seen as spoilers.  In petanque it is the sign of a good team.

So why are we talking about shooting and bowls. The answer is the surface the sports are played on. One is carefully mown grass that is level and fairly predictable. The other can be played on almost any surface. It can be played on grass, gravel, driveways, old tennis courts and car parks. These vary greatly and the scoring area can depend on the type of piste. On an easy piste to point on the scoring area can be reduced by careful defensive boule placed with precision next to opposition boule or right onto the jack. Here we may see a great deal of shooting because of the ability to deliver boule to the correct place on the piste. On rough car parks not really designed for petanque play, the scoring area can be huge. As boule rocket off bricks and rubble hidden in the sub structure placing a close boule to the jack can be tricky. These pistes are known as shooter pistes. I have no idea why because it means the shooter does not have to hit many boule to succeed in winning the game. Many teams adopting the bowls way will really fail in a big way if they continue to throw their boule in the general direction of the jack and watch as they disappear at right angles on to the next door piste or worse, rocket through the head to end up 2 metres or more long.

Maybe instead of pointing when the oppositions boule is 1 metre away, maybe you should shoot their boule.

Tricky pistes can lure the pointer to try to outpoint the out pointable. It is often stated that the piste is the same for everyone and the best teams will win on the day even if the piste is a tricky one. That is true but analysis of those good teams will reveal they have not one but two players capable of shooting accurately so they play their normal attacking game but actually do not need to hit as many boule as they would normally hit. The inability of teams playing against this onslaught not able to place a defensive boule consistently means it is a turkey shoot.

The key fact to look at is how many times could you place a boule into a 50cm circle that had the jack in the centre on the piste you are playing on. 6 out of 6 will mean a pointers paradise and a shooters nightmare. 1 out of 6 is the other way round. The sliding scale will help you see that pointing may just be throwing your boule away. Playing a defensive boule will be tricky and so you may need to widen your horizons on your pointing and shooting balancing choices depending on the piste. Tricky pistes do have some areas where pointing can be successful and so you may need to be light on your feet given the pointing / shooting choices.