A beautiful sunny day at Lancing was the setting for this year’s Southern Regional Doubles, which saw 20 teams from clubs across the region competing at Adur Petanque Club. Along with a few long-standing and established couplings, there were a number of new pairings which made for a very interesting competition as no-one could call who might take this prestigious title.
The day kicked off with a welcome from Glenn Floyd as teams got ready to compete in their morning leagues. With only eight teams – the league winners and next best three – going into the Gold, there were some seriously hard fought matches on the variety of terrains on offer at Adur. As always, the random draw determined the groups so it was inevitable that some top teams were going to miss out on their position should they end up in the “group of death” as was the case with our England Juniors (Jamie & Liam) who finished third in their group and missed out on a top-eight place. However, the team had a great afternoon and ended the day as worthy Silver Winners.
The B-squad junior team of Will and Sam secured their Gold place with three wins in the morning but came across a strong team of Sammy Thatcher and David Franco-Llado in the afternoon. The duo put up a good fight and impressed the on-lookers as they took 11 points off Sammy & David.
Another impressive team was Marc Franco-Llado and Liam Kidd, who only came together as a last-minute entry. After a solid performance in the morning, they made the Gold. It was a delight to observe these two humbling and quiet young players showcase their skills as they took on team after team to reach the final. Here, the team came up against legends Steve Lombard and Dave Lucas which saw our young team trailing at 0-11 and needing to dig deep. With a sense of calm and maturity, this newly formed team made an astonishing come back to win the game 13-11 and lift the Gold Trophy and be crowned this year’s SCPA Regional Doubles.
Once again with Hilary at the helm, the competition was run meticulously in a relaxed environment with everyone having a great day of Petanque. Thank you Hilary.
And finally a big thank you to the lovely team at Adur for all the ‘behind the scenes’ organisation and a very friendly team cooking up the bacon and burgers headed by David Fleck.
Congratulations and Well Done to all the winners.
Happy Blogger
Thanks to Mark Duncan for photos
Results
Gold
- Winners: Marc Franco-Llado & Liam Kidd
- Runners-up: Steve Lombard & Dave Lucas
- Semi-Finalists: Sammy Thatcher & David Franco-Cruz
- Semi-Finalists: David Kilshaw & Carrie Litchfield
Gold Consolage
- Winners: Graham Elcome & Jay Willcocks
- Runners-up: Glenn Floyd & Callum Lombard
Silver
- Winners: Jamie Brooks & Liam Floyd
- Runners-up: Ali Stubbs & Mike Porter
Silver Consolage
- Winners: Peter Missen & Andy Walker
Spoon
- Winners: Dave Stubbs & Geoff Sully