Petanque WA Inc is the sport’s "State League" and supports the 6 (six) Pétanque Clubs within the metropolitan area of Perth.

The committee of PWA is formed by one representative of each club which are Yves Najar (President), Tony Mitchell (Vice President), Guy Gaudet (Secretary), Helen Bayet (Treasurer), Lolita Forlano and Kim Douglas.

Pétanque is a form of boules where the goal is to throw metal balls as close as possible to a small wooden ball called a cochonnet. The game is normally played on hard dirt or gravel, but can also be played on grass or other surfaces. Similar games are bocce and bowls.

Bowl games really became organised at the end of the 18th century. The Fédération Lyonnaise et Régionale was founded in 1906 followed in 1933 by the Fedération Nationale des Boules which became the Fédération Française in 1942.

It is the Provençal variation of the game that later gave birth to the game of  pétanque which was codified in 1927 and led to the foundation of the Fédération Française de Pétanque et de Jeu Provençal (FFPJP). 

The term pétanque  comes from the Provençal  pés tanqués which means “Feet Tied Together.”

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Simplified Rules

The boules are made of metal and weigh between 650 g and 800 grams with a diameter of between 71 mm and 80 mm.

The jack is made of wood or synthetic material and has a diameter of between 25 mm and 35 mm.

The playing area should be at least 15 meters (49 ft) long, by 4 meters (13 ft) wide.

A player from the team that wins the toss starts the game by drawing a circle on the playing field (35 to 50 cm in diameter). Both feet must be inside this circle, touching the ground, when playing. The player then throws the jack to a distance of between 6 and 10 metres from the starting circle. The jack must be visible and at least 1 metre from any obstacle or boundary, otherwise it must be thrown again.

A player from the team that wins the toss then plays the first boule, trying to place it as close to the jack as possible. Then the opposing team must get closer to the jack and keeps playing until they succeed. When they do, it is back to the first team to do better, and so forth. The team winning the “end” gain as many point as they have boule which is closer than the nearest opponent’s boule.

The first team to get to 13 points is the winner.

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