Hervey Bay's 11yo Pialba Bowls Club player urges youngsters to embrace precision sport

Cooper Sutton was a six-year-old when he walked past his local bowls club for the first time and curiously spectated those on the green.

From that moment on, he was hooked to the bias and the kitty.

Now, aged 11, the Hervey Bay youngster is a veteran of the game, encouraging other juniors to have a roll.

«It's not a very popular sport,» Cooper said.

«Many other sports are being advertised on the TV every night, but lawn bowls is not one that is always up on the TV.

»But it's a very interesting game that requires a lot of skill and strategy."

Cooper said his interest in lawn bowls blossomed since leaving the pool for the grassy green.

«I was coming out of a swimming lesson when I was only in grade one and there was the Urangan Bowls Club next to my swimming place,» he said.

«So I asked mum, 'What are those people doing and could we go over there?'.

»I went over, watched them for an hour and then I decided this would be a good sport to play, and that's how I got into it."

Now a member with the Pialba Bowls Club on Queensland's Fraser Coast, Cooper has been somewhat of a trendsetter in the lawn bowls space.

«I was the first [and only] junior for about a year in Hervey Bay to play lawn bowls,» he said.

«Now in Hervey Bay there's only three juniors – I'm one of them and there are two others at this club. But there are a lot of juniors on the Gold Coast and [in] those big cities.»

Despite being a trailblazer, the young player is a traditionalist at heart.

«The thing I love about Pialba is the type of greens that they have, which is grass. So it runs really smoothly,» Cooper said.

«I like having the lines painted so that way you know what line to set the mat on, and having the grass cut every now and then makes it really smooth and to be able