The Bears are hovering around the outside of the top four and have two extremely difficult encounters to close out the home and away season.

That difficult run to the playoffs begins this Saturday with a clash against third-placed Creswick. Then comes a last-round battle with pacesetters Ballarat Memorial Sports.

As it stands, Central Wendouree is sixth on the division one weekend pennant bowls ladder, 10 points behind the fourth-placed Learmonth.

The Bears badly hurt their chances with last round's loss to lowly Webbcona and will need plenty to go their way to figure in finals.

Of course, there's more at stake than just finals and a premiership this season, with the four finalists winning a place in the new Ballarat-based premier league in 2019-20.

Those four teams will join the four current Ballarat District Bowls Division representatives in the Geelong-Ballarat Premier Bowls competition when it folds at the end of this season.

There's plenty of other important games in division one this weekend and perhaps none more than the battle between Ballarat and Learmonth.

Ballarat has suffered a massive fall from top spot to fifth in recent weeks and will find it hard against a Learmonth side that thrashed City Oval last Saturday.

Elsewhere, BMS will come up against Mt Xavier in a top-of-the-table showdown, City Oval is booked to host Ballarat East and Smeaton will meet Webbcona.

In the Geelong-Ballarat Premier Bowls competition's penultimate round, Sebastopol will look to break back into the four when it hosts top team Bareena.

Also on Saturday, Victoria gets a good chance to break through for a rare win when it hosts Highton, Buninyong has to travel to Queenscliff, Webbcona has an away match against Ocean Grove and Lara will battle with Eastern Park.