…………. will do to get a look at the talent on display at Monkstone Petanque Club.
….. or perhaps it was a spy from another club trying to look at our training methods. He couldn’t see from there that an essential ingredient of our training today was Lynda’s Danish Sausage Rolls!
Fourteen teams entered today’s Monkstone Open Doubles and after a chilly start the weather and the competition warmed up. With 14 teams it was difficult to have the usual pools followed by knockout and so a computer generated random draw was carried out where each team would play 6 other teams. By lunchtime, after 3 rounds, there were 4 teams on 3 wins:
| Keith Nott & John Barnes | Richard Harris & Matt Howells |
| Kon Tomczyk & Peter Westall | Roger Griffin & Bernard Adshead |
The afternoon session got underway and Round 4 brought Nott & Barnes against Griffin & Adshead. Unfortunately John Barnes was suffering with a shoulder injury and Griffin & Adshead ran out comfortable winners. With the other two lunchtime leaders also winning it put 3 teams on 4 wins. All 3 teams notched up a win in Round 5 to set up an exciting finish in Round 6.
Going into the final round all 3 teams were very close on games for/against but the order was:
| 1 | Richard Harris & Matt Howells |
| 2 | Roger Griffin & Bernard Adshead |
| 3 | Kon Tomczyk & Peter Westall |
The round pitted Tomczyk & Westall against Griffin & Adshead which meant only 2 teams could finish with 6 wins and with Harris & Howells drawn against Len Field & Jeremy Clare (3 wins) they were clear favourites to win the competition. The game between Tomczyk & Westall and Griffin & Adshead was nip and tuck with each team grabbing the lead only to lose it again. Unknown to both teams Harris & Howells had succumbed to Clare & Field meaning the winners of this game would win the competition being the only team with 6 wins. In a nail biting finish Tomczyk & Westall just managed to triumph by 9-8.
The final results were announced by Club President, Mike Jones:
| Pos | Team | W | F | A |
| 1 | Kon Tomczyk & Peter Westall | 6 | 73 | 35 |
| 2 | Richard Harris & Matt Howells | 5 | 73 | 25 |
| 3 | Roger Griffin & Bernard Adshead | 5 | 73 | 35 |
Congratulations to Kon Tomczyk & Peter Westall and a big thank you to all those who entered and took part. A special thank-you to Tony Smith for acting as organiser and running the competition.
After over a week offline, the Monkstone PC web-site is up and running again. Thanks go to Tony Smith for getting it sorted out with our web site hosters.
