Cahill buoyed by maiden BPL experience
Following a brilliant tournament debut, Right at Home Emerging Jackaroo Nick Cahill is more than thrilled about his form throughout BPL17 in Moama a fortnight ago.
Cahill was a late call up to the Melbourne eXtreme following Matt Flapper’s late withdrawal sue to personal reasons, and performed a variety of roles as the Victorian franchise narrowly missed out on a finals place on a net sets margin with the Moreton Bay Pirates.
Speaking on Bowls Australia’s (BA) ‘The Right Line’ podcast, the 20-year-old discussed his shock about receiving the call up just ten days out from the event, but noted that he treated it like a regular week of bowls and relished the opportunity, despite his bowls turning up late.
“It was just ten days, so I didn’t have much time to prepare for it but when I got the phone call and heard the news that I would be playing my first BPL, I couldn’t have been more excited,” Cahill said.
“I treated it like just another week of bowls honestly, all of the guys that were there are people I’ve played against before so it was just the format that was the biggest thing that was new.
“In terms of the players that were there and just putting bowls down it wasn’t too different and I had even had a bit of experience in Moama before the event so I think that helped in knowing what the green would run like and what bowls I should use.
“It wasn’t the flashiest of starts with my bowls not turning up on time, so I had to get over the hurdle, but I really enjoyed the experience.”
Cahill teamed up with Ali Forsyth and Natasha Van Eldik for the Club Sunbury franchise, finishing as one of only two teams to play with all six possible lead and skip combinations throughout the competition.
The Broadbeach Bowls Club exponent admits that there were challenges initially with the trio not having played together in one line-up, which is why coach Kelvin Kerkow OAM moved the magnets around.
“It was a challenge for us not having played together before, so we didn’t really know the strengths in each other’s games and how to go about the matches,” he said.
“We generally went with what we thought would work best, with Ali skipping to start with Tash and I leading up front and sharing that role.
“Mainly with me using straighter bowls at the start of the tournament it was all about leading, we could have altered that and I could have gone to skip earlier on in the tournament but we just found that was the best way to start.
“It didn’t get off to a flash start for us and it could have been a bit better so then it was about trying out as many combinations as we could.
“Unfortunately we left it a little late to find our sweet spot.”
With the positional changes came an opportunity to skip against the likes of Alex Marshall and his Broadbeach teammate in Aron Sherriff, which Cahill considers a privilege.
“We were pretty lucky against Alex actually, they had already secured a finals spot so the game we were playing was sort of a dead rubber and they were playing around with their combinations and we ended up having a win,” he said.
“I skipped in the last set against Alex which was a wonderful experience.
“Playing with Aron at Broadbeach, he’s one of the best in the business, one of the best that’s ever played and it is a privilege to step out onto the rink with him and the likes of Alex and all of the other players throughout the week.”
Catch up on all of ‘The Right Line’ episodes via Apple, Spotify, Google or Anchor.
