Break the bias is the theme of International Women’s Day on Tuesday, something Moama lawn bowler Cassandra Millerick can immediately identify with as the only woman in her club’s elite team.
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Rarely has the high-achieving former Queenslander put a bowl down on the wrong bias, but she can completely understand the theme of the March 8 women’s day celebration.
And, through her exceptional achievements since arriving at Moama eight months ago, she is providing an example for the next crop of young female bowlers coming through the ranks.
This week, in fact, Echuca Bowls Club will host the Campaspe schools lawn bowls championship and no doubt there is an aspiring Cassandra Millerick among the ranks of the 10 schools involved in the annual event.
While bowls is only one facet of her life, it has allowed her to enjoy some of benefits which are often the sole domain extended to her male counterparts, including the support of her employer.
Like many sports the modern game of lawn bowls has embraced gender equality, but like many sports, still has a long way to go.
Millerick’s status as the only woman in Moama Bowling Club’s 16-strong Bendigo Premier League team is a clear example of the room for improvement.
Premier League is the region’s elite competition and there are only three or four regular female bowlers involved in the level, from a total of 144 bowlers from the nine teams who take to the rink every Saturday.
“When I came to Moama the goal was always to play as part of the Premier League.
“I was a little dubious initially, being the only woman there, but I shouldn’t have been,” she said.
"I realise now it was only because I didn’t know everyone. It is great, everyone is so kind,“ she said.
Female participation at the elite level on the Gold Coast is significantly different to the Campaspe region and Millerick hopes she can provide some sort of inspiration for young female lawn bowlers to break into the Premier League ranks.
“There are not very many in the Bendigo competition.
“It’s very different to the Gold Coast, where there are women in every team,” she said.
One of the most significant focuses of International Women’s Day is in the workplace, where Millerick says she is afforded the same privileges and support as her professional lawn bowling fiancé, Kevin Anderson.
Anderson is the major reason she relocated from Queensland when he secured the senior lawn bowls management role at the Moama Bowling Club.
“One of the reasons I came down her was to play bowls, so having the support of Moama Bowling Club is a big reason that I have been able to achieve what I have,” she said.
She said most weeks, during the season at least, she worked four days and has a three-day lawn bowls commitment.
Then there are the tournaments, all year-round, where she is supported by the Moama club with time off while chasing her dream of Australian representation.
Millerick has always worked in hospitality, whether it be at her former Gold Coast-based club, Broadbeach, or at events like the Commonwealth Games.
She will turn 28 in May and has her sights set firmly on making lawn bowls a major part of her life.
Originally from Bungadoo, about 40km inland from Bundaberg, Millerick has a twin sister, Bolivia, who still lives on the Gold Coast.
She said the pair was lucky to have one another after her parents divorced, and they had “paced each other” for much of their lives.
“We have both played lawn bowls since we were 10 years old. It was something we saw on TV and we both said, ‘this is for us’,” she said.
Millerick said the nearest major town to Bungadoo, population 315, was Gin Gin and that is where the twins were given their start.
Since then she explained that lawn bowls, among many other sports in Australia, had taken a significant, and welcome, shift toward female inclusion at every level, from junior development through to elite representation.
No better evidence of that was provided than the Bowls Premier League event which was staged at Moama Bowling Club only last week. Each of the 10 franchises included a female in the three member teams.
For Cassandra and Bolivia it has always been more about the sport than gender equality, but both understood the significance of continuing to promote the involvement of girls in lawn bowls.
Addressing the elephant in the room, her sister’s unusual name, Millerick said her father had seen it on a street sign while travelling around Australia and fell in love with the name.
Both girls are members of the emerging Jackaroos squad, a group of 23 bowlers identified as the future of Australian representation in the sport.
The program involves meeting up twice a year, with COVID-19 putting a big dent in the 2021 plans for emerging Jackaroo camps.
Her sister has represented Australia, before life challenges momentarily interrupted her progression. Millerick said she was well and truly back on track now.
Both had their appetite for national representation enhanced by their involvement in the Commonwealth Games, on the Gold Coast, in 2018.
“I wasn’t part of the emerging Jackaroos at that time. I worked in one of the tents there and it was a great experience,” she said
It wasn’t instant success for the twins, Millerick explaining that, for her at least, not many titles were forthcoming at the primary and secondary school levels.
Both girls now, however, have a swag of Queensland titles to their credit and are regularly at the pointy end of national events.
She met Anderson when he relocated from Scotland to Queensland, the pair meeting at Broadbeach Bowls Club.
“We both worked there. I didn’t get to know him until a year later.
“When he applied for the job at Moama I thought to myself, ‘if he can move from Scotland to Queensland, I can go from Queensland to Moama’,” she said.
Millerick has also played much of this season with the top Moama midweek team, where teams are male and female.
Interestingly, one of the conditions of play in the Friday morning competition is that the mixed rinks are skipped by a female bowler.
Millerick has had an immediate impact at the club, winning the club’s women’s championship and then progressing to the regional title. She will now represent the Bendigo Campaspe Goldfields region in the state Champion of Champions event next month against 15 other regional champions.
She is a former Caloundra and Bundaberg club champion and was three-time runner-up to Australian bowling legend Katelyn Inch at Broadbeach, considered the base of Australia’s best lawn bowling talent.
At Moama she bowls in a different four to her fiancé, which she explains is for no other reason than team balance.
Brad Campbell is her skip in the Premier League competition, Millerick the 12th ranked third (of 79) in the competition this season.
Her next national event is the Australian Open from June 11-25.
"Bolivia and I will both be there, we are playing together in the fours at that event.
“We won’t play pairs, she is playing with someone from the Gold Coast and I am playing with Kelly Norris from Moama,” she said.
Her best result at the nationals was in Melbourne six years ago when she and Bolivia reached the semi-finals in the pairs.
“Last year we made the quarters in the fours and top 16 in the pairs, when I played with someone else.
“The singles is the hardest one to win,” she said.
Millerick explained that there was no hurry to set a wedding date as she and Anderson had both agreed that having his family at the big day was the most important consideration.
"We haven’t set a date for the wedding, because I wanted his family to come over.
“Because of restrictions we just weren’t confident,” she said.
In typical country Queensland style she added, “it’s a lot of money to spend to sign a bit of paper”.
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