Team Diary Friday 27th March 2009
Again, the morning started bright and early… and this time we remembered the headsets! We were pleased to hear that General Mac’s trousers had been returned (see yesterday’s diary) and the team arrived on the range nearly in perfect convoy, the captain was displeased that one bus managed to arrive at least 500m ahead of the others…again, and they weren’t in numerical order! The competition for this morning was the second stage of the 80th Anniversary match consisting of 2 and 10 at 800m and 2 and 11 at 900m. On arrival at the range we discovered that one of our team member’s brothers, shooting for the Welsh had won the short range stage yesterday with a 105.14.
If we had thought yesterday’s winds were tricky then today’s were on a new level. As usual, in the morning, the wind started out from the right but unusually never came around to a predominantly left wind until the afternoon’s team match. It tried a few times, after the first detail, and the resulting fishtail proved to be remarkably unpredictable. David Luckman, in the second and harder of the two details, managed to score a 50.8 converting two bull sighters- a highly commendable effort!
Falling back to 900m, both details encountered difficult winds although once again the second detail was the most testing. Trem managed to score a superb 54 (out of 55) starting with 1 minute left, going to 6 minutes right and finishing back on 3 minutes left by the end of his detail. Special mention should go to Jane Messer who scored a 103.7 and Alex Williams who had a 103.6 respectively fourth and fifth in the long range match. This shoot concluded the 80th anniversary individual championships – Jane Messer finished third with a 207.15, behind Alwyn McLean with a 208.15 and Ty Cooper (an American U25) won the competition with a 208.20.
After another sandwich lunch on the range, the team arrived promptly (30 minutes before the match started) behind the 900m firing point, this time in perfect convoy, following the team captain and even in bus order (1,2,3,4,5 and Beards!)
The afternoon’s shooting was the second stage of the team 80th Anniversary match. Following yesterday’s short range stage, South Africa led the USA by 16 points with England a further 6 points off the Americans. At 800m, South Africa extended their lead in “very very difficult” wind conditions. Almost all of the time allowance was used with sighters from later firers being fired early to assist the coaches with their wind judgement. Once again, South Africa used their local knowledge to increase their lead with some excellent shooting and equally good wind calling. Going back to 900m, the wind remained just as tricky and with the South African’s averaging solid 70’s scores, they finished an impressive 49 points of the USA who were themselves, 8 points ahead of the England team. Final scores are shown below. Top individual scores were Paul Sykes with a 293.38 and David Luckman with a 293.27.
Whilst 15 of the team competed in the anniversary match, another 8 with the guest appearances of Tim Webster and Tim Clarke competed in the invitational team match. They finished second to South Africa by 13 points in a closely fought contest.
The team spent the evening at the 80th Anniversary function held at a local school and hosted by SABU. There were many speeches and an extensive prize-giving, covering all manner of disciplines and classes that many of the team were not acquainted with! We managed to make it back to the hotel by 11pm in time to write this missive and go to bed before another early start tomorrow morning. Our apologies for the lack of photos in today’s diary, we will try and update tomorrow, when we are all a little fresher!
80th Anniversary Individual Championships
1. Ty Cooper (USA) 208.20
2. Alwyn McLean (Ireland) 208.15
3. Jane Messer (England) 207.25
4. Andy Wilde (England) 206.22
6. David Luckman (England) 206.20
International Anniversary match
- South Africa 3516.350
- USA 3469.303
- England 3461.293
- Ireland 3442.274
- Wales 3419.255
- Scotland 3401.236
- Channel Islands 3256.176
Invitational eight man team match
- South Africa 2314.209
- England 2301.176
- Ireland 2239.101
- Namibia 2220.137
- USA Goodwill 2214.150