CA of Ireland v SCA 2023

6-7 May 2023, Carrickmines

The CAI retained the Appleton Trophy, beating a team of four from the SCA 10-6. The CAI won the first round of doubles 2-0 and never looked back.  The next three rounds were all halved, meaning that the SCA had to win the final round of singles 4-0 to win back the trophy. In the event we lost 3-1.  In the singles Stefan had a good victory against Nathaniel, but was then defeated by Alan Looney in a late charge.  Gerard had the misfortune to peg off his own ball accidentally leaving him and Campbell to slog out a three-ball ending in torrential rain on the Saturday evening while all the others were long finished and safely in the bar before the rain arrived.

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West of Scotland Championship 2022

24-25 September, Knightswood

Six players took part in the West of Scotland handicap tournament so the all-pllay-all format was (just about*) used.  Two good quality and moderately paced lawns were available and conditions were helped by some excellent weather on the Saturday.

The most notable match was between Roger Binks and Kevin Wright.  With his partner ball on 3 Roger took his striker's ball though rover then pegged out Kevin’s peg ball. In doing so he unintentionally pegged out his striker's ball leaving only two balls (Law 43, "Pegging out in handicap games", was carefully examined). Kevin was then on 6 and Roger on 3 for the two-ball ending. Following some excellent hitting in and positioning, Roger was ahead after 1-back, although foolishly ran rover backwards instead of positioning for 3-back.  This allowed Kevin to narrow the gap and progress for the next shot at penult, where Roger had landed on the upright and being unable to make a roquet played north of the hoop.  Kevin progressed to rover but stuck midway. Roger scored penult with a long shot and reasonable clearance. Had his roquet attempt hit, it would have scored for Kevin, however it just missed and left Kevin to finish the game +2.

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