After a couple of changes of innings, John beat Janice. Chris appears to have decided that peeling is not always the best chance and turned down the opportunity to go for a standard triple against Alan and is now for 6 with his second ball.1b pioneer was poor but he got the rush. Makes 1b with K off U, sends to 1yd N & 1yd W of 3bgoes to R 2yd E of peg, takes off to Y 2yd N 1yd E of 2b, makes hoop

Rushes Y to 5yd SE of R sends to 4b, poor, 4yd W 2yd S of 4, approaches 3b frfom 2yd S. makes, reasonable penult pioneer 1.5yd E but rushes pivot to 1yd S of penultcroquets to tight penult pioneer getting rush on Y, rushes well to hoop. Should be easy to peg now.

Leave was R in Penult, Y 3yd S of peg wired from R. K & U near E boundary with a rush to Y.
Alan lifts Y, hits K. makes leave with K2yd S of 2 (R's hoop) U 3yd SE peg wired from U. SHoots Y into A baulk, leaves it 6" short of ideal positon giving K a lift! Chris takes lift makes better leave, Alan has no shot so makes life awkward. Chris finishes.

David B/G v John P/W
Didn't see the start, David in play, 3ball break for 6, 1b pioneer 3yd SE . Gets rush out of 6 to 1yd W of C1 where P resides. Croquets W to 2yd N, 1yd E of C1 gets rush on P to N of 1b pioneer . Sends topeg high between 1b & 2b rush on pioneer. Makes 1b but send G to 3yd W 1yd N of 3b, barely hits pivot and takes off to W outside C1. Stoppo approach fails , shoots int o C1.
W is 3 Yd S 2, P peg high 2yd E of line between 1 & 2

John lifts W to A baulkm shoots at G misses into C3. David sends B to 1yd Wof G. John sends P to N boundary 2yd E of 6

David rushes to 2b makes hoop rushes to 3b Rejection !

John hits P Takes off to G 1yd N of 3, B is 3yd W of Ggets rush to 2 on B leaving G 3yd E of 5. Rushes to 4yd S £ E of 2, approach OK, runs to rush on B to H4

Leaves B 1yd N of 4gets rush on G to P on N boundsary N of 6. Good rush!

Gets ush on P to 3, should be away. Attempts rush peel on Pfailss but gets peel going to G. Big croquet stroke leaves W 7yd short of B hits!

Makes 4, no rush so B to 1yd N peg rush on G to 5. Runs 5 but no rush so G to 3yd SW 1b, rush B to 6. B left NW of 6!. My expert analyst tells me that would be better to the NE

Now penult peel has failed going to 1b. 3b pioneer short but peel made before 2b and B rushed from W penult. 2b made B sent to 3yd SW of 4b. No rush out of 3b so big roll to penult.

G 3yd E of Penult, hits peelee into wire! Leaves it there makes 4b. B sent to 2yd N rover.. P rushed N of G sent dwon to just N of B. Looks difficult here.

Makes penult G sent ito P but ends up against B can see B though. B sent 3yd S of Rove. Peel done but follows through to hampered position has to hit peelee! Fails peg out and no combo Pegs W off with time called. David just has to do a 3ball straight quad to win!

Misses, John wins 25-16

In the rest of today's news I apparently missed Brian breaking his mallet yesterday. Leaving the lawn in disgust (I believe) he tossed his mallet into the ditch but it cartwheeled and landed on/near? Eileen Magee's teacup breaking both cup and mallet shaft. He finished the day using Jola's mallet and played today with his Pidcock. The end faces have stayed in so far ...

In round 6 Chris again played with single minded resolve finally overcoming his nemesis (Janice), David beat Brian in 3 breaks and John & Alan fought to give away the game with Alan winning the fight and John the match.

Round 7 saw David get to peg and rover against Janice then continually cornering until she made a mistake. he had the chance of a long peg out on time but cornered.
Alan had a 3 good breaks against Brian with another 7 or 8 bad breaks but Brian's unfamiliarity with thee croquet stroke ratios on his Pidcock let Alan in often enough to finish.
In the fianl match between John and Chris the sequence was something of the order of Chris gets in and goes round 4th or 5th turn. John hits the lift and goes round. Chris misses the lift. John goes to peg but is hampered after Rover and misses. Chris goes to peg, John misses Chris finishes. A high quality game with only one mistake.

The weather was kind although not as sunny as Saturday. Hoops fairly easy but gripping enough to make running with control only possible from less than 12" dead in front. Omegas would have been much poorer so using the Aldridges has been a success (IMHO). I think the scores in the Malmet and the lack of triples would suggest that. Several peeling turns were attempted (David had 2 or 3 yesterday) without total success although John came very close [see above] Lawns running around 9.5-10 and the hills beginning to have an effect.

So on to tomorrow. All to play for with David in pole position but John, Chris and Alan all still in the hunt. As Holmes might say "the game's afoot!" Wilson would then make a joke about it being the second leg