The addition of Kyabram to the Campaspe Playing Area has bolstered numbers across the divisions but has added additional stakes to the now nine-team division one weekend pennant.
To balance out the league, the bottom-placed side will now find itself relegated to division two, with relegation flowing down through divisions two to four and creating an even number of sides in each for season 2026-27 and beyond.
It is expected promotion and relegation will continue to shuffle teams between divisions in future years and in the midweek pennant.
Nine sides temporarily in the weekend division one also adds a bye, and sides will have an uneven number of them in the 15-round season.
Teams experiencing a second bye will be awarded four competition points to compensate for the missed opportunity to earn them on the greens.
“(The schedule’s) so tight,” Bendigo Campaspe Goldfields Bowls Region president Vicky Tierney said.
“Bowls Australia and Bowls Victoria put their (events) in, and then we have to work around all the dates.
“There’s just no room to play 18 rounds, but that’s why if we go back to eight (teams), we’ll always fit it in.”
Both pennants for 2025-26 kick off within the next seven days, the first round of weekend action beginning this Saturday, October 4, and the midweek pennant kicking off on Tuesday, October 7.
Moama, the 2024-25 weekend champion, starts its campaign a little early against the previous year’s winner, Mathoura, at Mathoura Bowling Club in a twilight fixture on Friday, October 3.
Newcomer Kyabram hosts Stanhope in its first action in the new association.
In the midweek, champion Echuca hosts cross-river rival Moama in the opening round.
Round one draw
Weekend
Echuca vs Deniliquin
Rich River vs Tongala
Mathoura vs Moama
Kyabram vs Stanhope
Rochester bye
Midweek
Rich River vs Mathoura
Deniliquin vs Kyabram
Echuca vs Moama
Rochester vs Stanhope
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