Slightly delayed reposting from the Notts and Aussie croquet lists last night - a summary of my time at the lovely Whakatane croquet club.

Day 3 at Whakatane

Today started with a few transport issues, but we got on the road eventually and headed south along the coast to Whakatane croquet club. A 4 lawn club set among the picturesque surrounds of palm trees and a bush-covered hill. Overcast for a few hours, the sun eventually came out, and a little wind, but it was a very pleasant day.

The lawns were an ok pace, with some faster brown parts, and firm hoops which were well maintained throughout the day.

We arrived as Reg was cleaning up opponent Steve Piercy. Hamish McIntosh also won his first match in two games, against the popular English youngster John-Paul Moberly. It was good to see U21 champ Josh Freeth pick up his 3rd win of the block first up as well.

We started our round shortly after arriving, so I didn’t see a lot of round 1, but had a pretty good spell of hoop running against Terry Ericson to have a quick win and a chance to write some commentary on the round 3 games. Terry is a lovely chap, and was a bit unlucky in the match. One good jump stroke got him back into the match at one point, but other jumps weren’t quite on target. He got a number of 4 yard jumps in the NZ GC nationals, so was someone scary to watch lining them up. Jumping certainly seems to be easier if you’re 6 foot tall! Also in the first round of E block matches at Whakatane was Omar Fahmy vs Bernard Thys. Omar suffered the same fate as me yesterday – the bottom-seeded Belgian went on a crazy hoop-running spree in game 2 and cleaned up the Egyptian, clearing lots and running hoops from everywhere. Omar sorted things out in the third, winning with the unlikely scores 7-2 2-7 7-1.

Power-hitter Chris McWhirter (Australia) blasted Mike McClure off the lawn, winning the second game 7-0.

Round 3 got under way with Reg playing Hisham Yassin. I didn’t see much of the game, but Hisham gave him the best run for his money so far of anyone – he scored 4 points in game 2.

The lawns at the venues are friendly enough that a player of Reg’s skill can take position pretty much at will and, despite protests from some of the international players, the hoops are very runnable with a decent stroke – Chris and Mike proved that in their afternoon games!

It was really good to catch up with Reg today. He explained the yellow card incident from yesterday. He was playing Hamish McIntosh and got to a position where two balls were a couple of mm apart. Not wanting to separate the balls, he tried to deem, but Hamish reminded him that was an AC construct. Reg then had the interesting idea to play Hamish’s ball, and commit a ‘fault’. After a few efforts of this, a ref got involved, decided it was a deliberate fault and warned Reg. I wonder how many refs have warned world champions? At it was, it was actually a wrong-ball, so Hamish should have been able to continue with either ball, but it was a bit unusual.

I decided to do a bit of commentary on Mohammed Karem v Hamish McIntosh – see croquetscores.com. Mohammed got 6-1 up in the first game, but Hamish fought back to 7-4, and looked like potentially going even better. Game 2 saw lots of powerful clearances and long hoops from Karem, and McIntosh couldn’t keep up with the hoop running accuracy, so the match was over fairly quickly.

On lawn 3 Josh Freeth and John-Paul Moberly had a good battle. Josh had the lead for most of game 1, but JP fought back, and then took the initiative running hoop 11 from the north boundary behind hoop 2! Josh is pretty unflappable though, and won 7-6, after JP had one go at the 13th hoop. Game 2 saw Josh in control most of the way, but a couple of massively competitive hoops – one lasting nearly half an hour. Lots of central clearances and good placement. Eventually Josh prevailed and he’s now in good position in his block on 4/6. JP is on 3/6 and is still in with a chance.

The final round of matches saw Terry avoid the Belgian’s game 2 antics and win the match comfortably in two. In a big upset, Omar got blasted off the lawn by Mike McClure – who’s clearances, hoop running and jump strokes were exceptional – Mike won 7-6 7-1!

My match against Chris McWhirter was the pick of the final-round matches. Some long hoops, a 3yard jump stroke, and two other jumps gave me the edge in game 1, but Chris was looking very strong with his excellent position-taking and powerful hoop-running. Game 2 I took a 3-1 lead, but Chris then blasted into the lead and was up until a poor attempted jump at a very difficult hoop 10 rush-peeled me. Having got position twice at hoop 11, a clearance of Chris’s ball should have seen a 6-5 lead, however he ran 11 from an angled position on the north boundary. His position taking at hoop 13 was also excellent, and a missed 8 yarder gave him an easy hoop to tie the match.

Game 3 started poorly – two approaches to hoop 1 were a bit short and angled. Chris took deeper position with blue, but ended up adjacent to the hoop with black. I got in the jaws of 1 – as Chris was calling out “wrong ball”, and got to have a go with the ball 1 inch away from red – and missed the jaws badly. Chris ran the hoop by a foot, but red was hampered from getting to hoop 2 by black in front of it. Red played to hamper black from going north and Chris played an outrageous rush – rushing blue THROUGH hoop 2. It hilled a bit, but was an excellent shot. 0-2. Tsk.

Winning the next three hoops got things back under control and the match turned into a bit of a slugfest with plenty of clearances, many pretty central – Chris’s being by far the more powerful. Chris also started running long hoops, and became relatively aggressive – and successful – at going for very long hoops.

A big turning point happened at hoop 11 when my ball went too close to Chris – about 5 feet, but his clearance was overhit, and not central, with yellow ending up off the side boundary, but blue going down to hoop 4. A few strokes later and I failed an easy hoop 11, but got a closer chance that went to great position at hoop 12. Chris had a couple of goes at yellow and/or hoop 12, but missed both, which was enough to finish a really enjoyable match.

It was a pretty good day over all. Really nice club, and good to see Ross and Irene and George Coulter’s grandparents again. Definitely worth another visit sometime.

Regards to all,

Jenny