It's started!

Petanque may very well be on its way to Penicuik.  I wasn't aware that the Town is twinned with a town in Provence (Petanque's home).  I am hopeful that I will be able to find some willing people to help me develop a club which will benefit the Penicuik community, as well as give me some people to play with!

Grand Prix 2

18 teams showed up at Inverness PC for the second of the 3 round qualifier for the Scottish Masters title.  We had quite a hard draw, playing against 3 teams from Fochabers/Aberdeen who can all be a real challenge.

The day started quite well, winning our first two games (although we didn;t play that well in all honesty).  We lost our 3rd game 7-13 to the eventual winners - The Pisteols who won all of theirs.

On to the afternoon and after 3 close games, we came out with 5 wins overall, and third place.  Not at all bad and a real improvement compared to previous weekends!

We're now sitting 3rd in the overall rankings which is great.  Hopefully we can push on to get second or even first???

Thanks for reading.

Celtic Challenge

Hi all.  Just returned from the Vale of Glamorgan, the annual Celtic Challenge held at Wenvoe Petanque Club.  Had a great weekend socially, met up with old and new friends.  It's always nice to see the Welsh and Irish petanque players.

Unfortunately the petanque was poor.  12 games, 3 wins.  Very poor show, and especially frustrating as we know we can do much better.  The pistes were challenging which isn't an excuse, we should be able to play anywhere!

So back to the drawing board - need to have a serious think about where we went wrong.  I think it was just a case of 3 of us being in poor form at once.

Thanks for reading. Grrr!

Almost a perfect day

Last Sunday saw the first competition of the new season at Inverleith - the Francis Faber Memorial Pairs.  This year I paired with Emma Montgomery.  The weather was glorious and although the usual Inverleith breeze kept the temperature down, the sun shone all day.  Disappointingly only 9 teams turned out - may have been due to the school holidays I suppose but surely our club of 65 could raise more teams???

I was in charge of organising play.  The nine teams were drawn into 3 leagues of 3 in each, the top team from each league would qualify, plus the best second place team, would qualify for the afternoon's main competition, with the non-qualifiers playing in the plate.

We were drawn in an 'all Inverleith' league.  We first played John Porter and Allan Murray.  Having won the toss we elected to play on my favourite surface, the one on which Ben and I had so much success at the end of last year.  It looks pretty tame, but it is hard on the pointers with soft, firm and sloping areas.  And so it proved to be, John and Allan struggled to point consistently to be honest.  We won 13-10 in the end - our pointing was also not that great, but managed to make it count at critical points.  We then played Mari and Christine, who had been fannied by John and Allan in their previous game.  Again we won 13-10.  We took a pretty commanding lead, 12-4 if I recall, but we struggled to finish the game, and in the end had to rely on a bad end from Mari and Christine.

So we qualified for the main competition having won both games.  Into the afternoon, and our first game was against last year's winners, Johnny and Robbie.  This was to be our finest hour.  We challenged them throughout the game and managed to put quite a lot of pressure on their game.  They would have to be on their top form to keep up with us for a change!  We won 13-9 and I have to say it was one of the best games of Petanque I have played in a while.

Then, a total melt-down, the highs of the previous game disappeared very quickly indeed.  We were put onto a relatively easy piste by Jean & Henry.  In the first end we left 6 balls at least one metre short, and lost 4.  Second end was no better and therefore we were very much up against it.  Our chances of winning the competition were dissipating rapidly.  We managed to pull back 6 points but in the end Jean's pointing was just too good.

On to our final game - John and Allan again (as they had qualified as best second place in the morning).  We won the toss and didn't hesitate to go back to our favourite piste.  And what a game we played, winning 13-1.  A carreau with the last ball of the game scored us 4 points and put us within a good chance of winning the comp.  All we needed Jean & Henry to do was score 4 points against Johnny and Robbie.  Sadly, however, they could only manage 2 and so we finished second.

So, nearly a great day, but at least the signs are that this could be a good season for me.  I was very pleased with my shot selections and the shooting was pretty good throughout the day. Another 2nd place trophy for the mantlepiece!

So, on to Perth next Sunday.  I'm playing with Derek this time, who will be my regular partner for pairs this year.  And here's hoping the improvement continues!

Thanks for reading!

Nearly there

Went down to the club on Sunday for the first time this year.  I'm a bit rusty! Our lighter coloured pistes (the granite dust ones) are very soft at the moment - bit like playing on wet sand.  But it was like that last year, nothing a few days of warm sunshine wont cure.

Threw about 100 balls - not too bad. Six tirs in a row at one point.

Really looking forward to the season beginning again.  Got a lot on.  This Sunday is North v South at Perth (I'll not be there though).  The first open is Francis Faber Pairs on 11th April, a match against Tweed Valley Petanque Club in Peebles - good networking opportunity - and then Grand Prix 1 the week after.  Then off to Cardiff for the Celtic Challenge.

So it's all go - better practice.  Need to win more than just one competition this year (i'd quite like to win a few majors this year).

On a separate note, I've redone the club logo in preparation for ordering new polos and sweatshirts.

I think it's ok - but someone thinks it looks a bit like me!

Cheers for now!

Colin

Too chilly!!!

No boules since October - been too cold for me.  Will post here when I've got something to report!

Victory at last!

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!