Cooktown’s Corinne Stallan shows off the championship shield and her player of the series silverware after she skippered the Queensland women’s under-25 lawn bowls team to a 2-1 test series win against New South Wales in Sydney. Photo: Supplied.
Rising lawn bowls star Corinne Stallan has returned to Cooktown with some extra silverware in her baggage after leading her Queensland team to a 2-1 test series win against their New South Wales foes last week.
Stallan, who has only been playing the sport “five or six years”, travelled to Sydney on 16-17 July to contest the women’s under-25 division in a three-test series, where she not only got to don the Maroon on the green, but also captain the four-person team.
In addition to getting to raise the championship shield in triumph, Stallan was named player of the series for her leadership and ability with the bowl.
The U25 women’s team started the test series in the best way possible, chalking up 45-42 and 41-27 victories in the first two games to secure an unassailable lead ahead of the final game, which New South Wales claimed 50-38.
It has been a meteoric rise for the 18-year-old, who paid her own way to attend the Queensland championships on the Gold Coast in May to seek state representation and book her ticket to the Sydney showdown against the Blues.
“I just went along one day playing social bowls and decided I liked it, and a coach took me under his wing and it went from there,” she explained when asked what piqued her interest in the sport.
“I like the teamwork and playing in a team with my mates.”
Lawn bowls has seen a spike in younger players over the past decade and Stallan said she believed the sport’s popularity was in part thanks to competition grandparents who took kids like her to games.
“It’s a more fun game than a lot of people think, so I think the increase in popularity has been from grandpas taking kids like me along and playing on the green, and finding out they like it,” she said.
“Heaps of the girls I spoke to down there got into it by going to clubs with their grandparents.”
While Stallan has her eye on another potential trip south to battle Victoria in an upcoming test series, she said she was, for now, looking forward to returning to the Cooktown Bowls Club for club competition.
Corinne Stallan (second from right) and her Queensland teammates are all smiles after claiming an impressive series win against New South Wales in the women’s under-25 lawn bowls division. Photo: Supplied.
