18 April - Short Croquet - Nailsea and District Croquet Club

Why spoil the habit of a season – let’s start this report by setting the scene weather-wise: a huge contrast to the rained-off One Ball competitions, Saturday was sunny but cold – although a few outer layers were removed during the day in the heat of the competition.

16 players turned out and enjoyed (some may have used another word at times) the games. An interesting conundrum at the end of the first round: if a player with a handicap of 3 peels has only completed two peels when the timer goes, are they allowed to complete the third peel during their final turn, and if the game finishes (but is not pegged out) without all the peels being completed, is there any penalty?

The greatest, and not so greatest minds were sorely exercised, and the game was pegged down until the arrival of a referee at lunch time – the answers were: yes, the peel can be undertaken in the final turn, and no, there is no penalty for not completing all the peels. The peels must be completed before the player pegs out. So if the player does not peg out, they do not have to achieve all their peels – remember this, it may turn up in a croquet quiz one day.

Having established this, Kriss Chambers failed to secure the hit-in necessary to move the game on to a peg-out, but secured a +1 on time win over Jim Gregory.

Not all games were completed in the other two blocks but the result of the later game played between Peter Dyke and Linda Shaw, confirmed Peter as the outright winner of his block. So the semi finalists are:

Winner Block A: Kriss Chambers	versus	Winner Block C: Andrew Wimshurst
Winner Block B: Jim Field	versus	Winner Block D: Peter Dyke

Kriss Chambers who won his block outright, will play against Andrew Wimshurst who beat Kathy Wallace on points in their block.

Jim Field, beating Neil Devine on points, will play against Peter Dyke who was the outright winner in his block.

	JF	JG	ND	BC	Wins	Points	Pos’n
Kriss Chambers	-9	+1T	+11	+1T	3		1
Brian Roynon	+4T	-1T	-5T	-9T	1		3
Ian Telfer	-2	+3T	-3	+9	2		2
Polly Reynolds	-12	-1T	-4T	-2T	0		4

	KC	BR	IT	PR	Wins	Points	Pos’n
Jim Field	+9	-4T	+2	+12	3	19	1
Jim Gregory	-1T	+1T	-3T	+1T	2	-2	4
Neil Devine	-11	+5T	+3	+4T	3	1	2
Brigit Clayton	-1T	+9T	-9	+2T	2	1	3

	BM	PD	LHB	TY	Wins	Points	Pos’n
Andrew Wimshurst	+9	-1T	+5T	+6T	3	19	1
Kathy Wallace	+1T	-7	+1T	+4	3	-1	2
Mary Barnes	-7	+1T	-8T	-10T	1	-24	4
Linda Shaw	-3T	-6	+1T	-1T	1	-9	3