Events season has been a struggle: Turley
Former Jackaroo and Club Tweed Bowls Director Wayne Turley OAM says the recent lockdown in New South Wales has wreaked havoc on events around the district.
Speaking on Bowls Australia’s ‘The Right Line’ podcast, Turley said numerous events have been cancelled and the club on the border of Queensland and new South Wales had to take extreme measures just to fill a team in a competition just a fortnight ago.
“We’ve had to cancel all of our major events, such as the Golden Nugget, the Junior Nugget and all the tournaments we have,” he said.
“We had a $20,000 open fours event that we had to cancel, it’s just been really hard and the biggest factor for us is the border.
“Recently we were playing in the pennants and we had all the men’s and women’s divisions making the finals and unfortunately we could only get division one of the men and ladies to compete.
“In the final, we only had four out of our twelve players that could play, we had to make up with other Queensland residents, basically some players who had never played before.
“I had to get one lady out of hospital at 11 o’clock at night, I had to discharge her, and I had to get another lady back from holidays just to play.”
The Commonwealth Games gold medallist highlighted the eerie scenario of living on the border of New South Wales and Queensland.
“It’s pretty scary when you go to the border and you see people handing things over, and others having barbecues and just crying,” Turley said.
“There’s crying grandparents and crying kids in between a concrete barrier and they can’t get across, it’s pretty upsetting.
“Coolangatta is just a dead zone, it’s in Queensland and nobody is going there so people own businesses but live in New South Wales only a hundred metres away but can’t get over.”
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