Over 200 men have quit Tasmania South's Saturday pennant since it started allowing female competitors in October.

Like grandpas struggling with TV remotes, there are a lot of angry old men in Tasmania at the moment.

A recent decision by the state's biggest lawn bowls club to allow women to compete in a previously male-only competition has seen men furiously dropping out of the tournament and threatening to launch a breakaway competition, reports the ABC.

Since October - when women were first allowed to compete in Bowls Tasmania South's Saturday pennant - over 200 men have quit the competition in outrage. This week, a bunch of those men woke up at 4:15am (probably), put on their best beige slacks and formed a committee to lobby the league to launch a new men's only comp - and the idea's received backing from 10 of the league's 28 club presidents.

"We don't have a choice of playing men's bowls, which really sticks in my craw," a Sandy Bay Bowls Club member awesomely told the ABC. "I think it's unfair and it's sexist. You've got to watch your Ps and Qs. You can't act and do the same things as you did with your men's compatriots."


"I think if we give the information to Bowls South, I think they... just can't let it go [on] when you've got such a big number of people not happy with the way the game's going down here with the mixed gender," added another upset bowler. "All we're trying to do is get back to what we had."

Leigh McAdam, the president of Tasmania Bowls South, backed the decision to make the comp mixed. "The concept of bowls being an old man's game is certainly changing," he told the ABC, noting that the shift has allowed women who work or study during the week to take up the sport.

The league plans on reviewing the competition at the end of the season. In the meantime, this face is gonna be hilariously common around Tasmania's bowls clubs.

Source: ABC