Monkstone Pétanque Club

The 2022 Xmas Melee, delayed from December due to appalling weather, was finally played at the Club on Sunday 15 January 2023. In the best Christmas tradition, the 23 members who entered were fortified with mince pies and mulled wine between rounds 1 & 2. The weather this time was fine with exception of a couple of showers before the competition started and a downpour at the start of Round 2 – but, with everyone full of mince pies and mulled wine, did we care?

The competition got underway under leaden skies but no rain. As there were 23 entarnts some games had to be played as triples or double v triple. At the conclusion of the first round their were 11 players on 1 win with Roger “Ben” Bennett and newbie Sharon Paynter leading the way on +10.

Mulled wine & mince pies were consumed in the break and all waited to see if this had any impact on the play in Round 2 – which began in a deluge with some of the less hardy players still sheltering in the clubhouse when the whistle went for the start of the round. Evryone made it out onto the terrain but some of the games were considerably shorter than the alloted 40 minutes. When the scores were in we were down to 7 players on 2 wins. Ben had dropped away but Sharon was still leading with +20 now followed by Tony Smith (+17), Sean Smith (+15) and Keith Nott (+10). Could Sharon hang on with these seasoned players yapping at her heels.

Round 3 was duly played out and it was revealed that Sharon had won but by only 1 point giving her (+21) for the competition which left Tony & Sean well within striking distance and even Keith with an outside chance if he could secure a big win. As the results came in Tony had lost taking him out of the picture but Keith Nott was the opposition. His win by (+ 8) was not enough to dislodge Sharon from the top spot which left only Sean who won his game but by a margin of (+4) which left Sharon as a very popular winner having only taken up the game in the last few months. 

2021 winner Bernard Adshead presents the trophy to Sharon Paynter

FULL RESULTS

The second leg of the annual Winter Friendly against Caerleon RFC PC was played today at a rather chilly Caerlon but at least the rain held off untill the last 30 mins or so.

In order to involve as may players as possible, it was agreed to increase the number of games from the usual format to:  12 x Singles, 7 x Doubles, 5 x Triples.

Monkstone were 12 points down from the first leg but closing the gap, particularly with the extra games, was by no means an impossible task.

The opening Singles went well for Monkstone with a 7-5 [14pts to 10pts] win during which Phil Roberts beat Gemma Foster [13-12] for the third successive time and Vickie Adshead beat Steve Snudden [13-4] to record an unexpected, particularly by her, win. Monkstone had made up 4 of the 12 point deficit. 

The Doubles, which hadn’t gone well for Monkstone in the 1st Leg, went even better that the singles this time round with the away team winning 5-2 [15pts to 6pts] giving Monkstone a 1 point overall lead in the competition. Beryl McCarthy continued her winning run in the doubles from the 1st Leg, this time showing Bernard Adshead how to point, in a 13-10 win. 

So onto the Triples where Monkstone needed to win at 3 out of 5 games to win the trophy for the 3rd successive year.  Ultimately Monkstone fell just short by taking only 2 of the 5 triples and so losing the competition by 4 points [64 – 68] but took some consolation from winning on the 2nd Leg [39 – 31].

A terrific effort by the whole team paricularly the less experienced players who found themselves drawn against Caerleon’s top players. 

The competitive but friendly spirit that this fixture has become accustomed to continues but the time had come for Monkstone Captain, Bernard, to hand over the trophy to Caerleon Captain, Kon Tomczyk, while asking him to look after it as we want it back next year!

Kon Tomczyk, Keith Wanklyn (Caerleon V-Chair) & Bernard Adshead

Many many thanks to all those who took part over the two legs and I hope that the less experienced players got something out the competition.

FULL RESULTS of the 2 legs