Bowls SA Inducts Wayne Ruediger into Hall of Fame
South Australia is extremely proud to call world champion bowler, Wayne Ruediger their very own.
We congratulate Wayne Ruediger for being inducted into the Bowls SA Hall of Fame, recognising his outstanding achievements, and celebrating his remarkable accomplishments in the sport of lawn bowls.
Wayne’s family introduced him to the sport of bowls. In Wayne’s own words “I guess I became involved in bowls through family. My grandfather played 245 games for SA. Dad played. My grandfather helped me get a job as an apprentice greenkeeper at Holdfast Bay. So I started from there. It was about 1994. Getting out there having a go, then you start playing more and more”.
Even though these career stats will continue to grow, Wayne has an impressive record so far, having debuted in 2012 for Australia, played 211 games for the Australian Jackaroos, his Australian cap number is 136.
International achievements:
• 2012 SA International Series – Gold – Triples
• 2012 World Championships – Silver – Triples
• 2012 World Championships – Gold – Fours
• 2014 Commonwealth Games – Bronze – Fours
• 2015 Asia Pacific Championships- Bronze – Triples
• 2015 Asia Pacific Championships – Silver – Fours
• 2016 Six Nations International – Silver – Fours
• 2017 Trans Tasman – Overall Men’s Champion
• 2017 Gold Coast Multi-Nations – Gold – Triples
• 2019 Multi-Nations – Bronze – Triples
• 2019 Multi-Nations – Gold – Fours
• 2019 Multi-Nations – Overall Team/Overall Men’s Champions
National achievements:
• 2014 Australian Open – Silver – Fours
• 2015 Australian Open – Gold – Fours
• 2016 Australian Open – Gold – Fours
• 2019 Australian Open – Silver – Pairs
• 2022 Australian Open – Gold – Fours
Wayne is curently sitting second on state games played for South Australia out of 206 past representatives. Ray Tume currently holds the games played record with 405 games played. At this years Nationals Series Wayne is set to surpass this milestone.
State achievements:
• Men’s State Representative of the year 2013-14, and 2018-19
• Men’s State Pairs Winner with Simon Dorr – 2012-13
• Men’s Champion of Champion Pairs – 1999-00 with S Buesnal, 2004-05 with Les Carter
• Men’s Champion of Champion Singles – 2002-03, 2016-17, 2017-18
• Men’s Metro Singles – 1999-00
• Men’s State Triples Winner with Les Carter and Simon Dorr – 2005-06
• SA Super League – 2019 Winner (and player of the match) with the Central Charges, and 2022 Winner with the Central
Wayne has represented Adelaide Endurance and Adelaide Pioneers franchises in: APL01-03, BPL04 (Endurance), BPL10-19 (Pioneers) with honours in the BPL19 as MVP equal runner up.
When asked for his most memorable highlights, Wayne said “I’ve probably got a couple, obviously the 2012 World Championships –being lucky enough to win a Gold medal there, and probably state wise it would have to be winning the Alley Shield in Adelaide in 2017.”
A valuable tip Wayne is happy to share with bowlers wanting to follow in his footsteps is “Practice often but not for too long.” Wayne explained further “I find that sometimes people who practice for too long, practice their bad habits. I pretty much work on the old theory of 20 or 30 minutes, so practicing regularly is the way to go.”
Wayne Ruediger still enjoys playing and still plans to keep bowling for his club and the state of South Australia. He shared that “I keep it simple, work hard and enjoy myself.”
Congratulations Wayne, from the team at Bowls SA. We are all in awe of your remarkable achievements and are glad to hear you will be continuing your stellar bowls career at a state and local level.
