Bit late this post, but I've been busy!
Sunday 11 October was our last open competition of the year, the Inverleith Cash Pairs. Unlike our other open's, this competition is cash only prizes. This is the second year we have tried this. The club don't make a profit from the competition at all - entry fees, raffle and catering proceeds all go into the prize pot. We also add in a little sponsorship money to bolster the fund. It's our way of thanking all those who support our opens during the year.
Reminds me, must make a concerted effort to support Perth's opens from now on - they are huge supporters of ours and it's about time we reciprocated. I digress.
12 teams turned out on what proved to be a lovely autumn day. It was a shame the entry was so low, may consider shifting to the height of the season next year. Would also be great to attract teams from England, but we'll need to advertise a reasonable cash prize for that, to make it worth their while coming up here!
Ben and I played together again, me back to shooting which I much prefer. We were placed 2nd in this competition last year and were determined to, again, play well.
Morning was 4 leagues of 3. Much better than the 'league of 5' debacle of last year - we've learned our lesson. Top 8 teams from the morning leagues to go into the afternoon swiss for the title, those who failed to qualify to play in a 4 team round robin for the plate.
We were unfortunately drawn in an all Inverleith league - Mags and Monty, and Emma and her pal who's name I've forgotten. A big win against Emma's team virtually assured us of qualification after our first game. We then beat Mags and Monty to finish top of the group (although with a random draw for the afternoon's play it made no odds whether we finished 1st or 2nd). The other 2 formidable teams, Johnny/Robbie and Byron/Stephane made it through too (despite being drawn in the same league).
In the afternoon we were drawn against Douglas and Stuart in the first round. We won the toss and took them to our newly built piste. We had the option of being really nasty and taking them onto 'The Hill' which can make pointing a real challenge, but opted instead for the more flat area, which I think is actually a better piste as although it appears flat, it in fact has a large amount of variable swing, soft parts and some very firm parts. It can make pointing difficult and is often unforgiving to the shooter who lands short. It was a good decision. Familiarity with the piste was proving to be the difference between the teams and we won comfortably, our opponents having no luck at all.
On to the semi-final. Byron and Stephane won their first game and so were our opponents. We knew it was likely that they, being reigning Scottish Pairs Champions, would be tough to beat and we'd need to be on our game. We won the toss and elected for the same new piste as the first round. The first few ends we exchanged a handful of points.
With us leading 3-2 we faced our most challenging end of the afternoon. Byron's pointing was canny, not too close to tempt me into shooting, but close enough to make Ben have to work hard. A combination of poor pointing and a couple of missed tirs left us with a severe boule disadvantage, B&S lying two shots and three still to play, against our two in hand, one for Ben and one for me. Worst still our nearest boule was now 2 metres behind the coche. The natural instinct was to defend our position, but with the boules left in hand I feared we'd simply be shot off the piste, leaving us likely to lose at least 4 shots, but maybe a full house of 6. So I stopped Ben pointing, and decided to try and kill the end by shooting the coche either dead, or towards the 3 boules which were lying near the back of the piste (my 2 missed tirs and one of Ben's tir casualties). My shot felt perfect in the air and I moved the coche......an inch sideways. So it looked like we were set for a disaster. The perfect shot for Ben to play was to point directly at the coche in the hope that it lay directly on it. That was a shoot from the other team would either kill the end (maximum points lost restricted to 2) or for the coche to go towards our back boules.
In the end Ben's point didn't quite hit the spot, lying second. Two missed shoots (one each from Byron and Stephane) saved our bacon and we ended up losing only 2 points. 3-4. And they were the last points we lost. Electing to use longer coche lengths than we would normally do caused problems for their pointing. By contrast our game peaked, pointing 4 shots to a 9.5 metre coche within a two feet radius on the most difficult surface, uphill with right to left swing. So 13-4 it was, we had some good fortune, but we were pretty much untouchable for the second half of the game.
On to the final, where we fully expected to play Johnny and Robbie. But no, Alice and Ed had managed to beat them in their semi. We were again fortunate to win the toss and again select the nasty piste we'd got so used to by now. Ed and Alice couldn't come to grips with the surface and we won 13-3.
So, it had to wait to the final competition of the year to record my first proper win of the season. What a relief, and to go home with £50 in my back pocket was very welcome!
The final fling of the season is the Central League Cup, hosted at Inverleith Park on 1st November. Bovril all round for that one I think, it'll be chilly.
Thanks for reading!
