South West Single Barrel Inter-counties 2022 + 100 DTL – Two Counties 2/10/22
The Single Barrel team scores.
This is another report written the day after, as it took me twice as long to get home from Two Counties as usual due to a pedestrian fatality and multi-vehicle pile-up on the A38 earlier in the day. What’s usually an hour and a half trip turned into a three-hour navigation exercise! At least I’ve seen some parts of Devon that are new to me, and learned a new route home if needed.
We couldn’t have asked for better weather, which was very surprising given that I had heavy rain all the way from home to the other side of Plymouth (a good hour and a bit)! When I got to the ground, Malcolm Brown obviously expected the same as me because he had his wellington boots on!
A little soggy underfoot, but otherwise dry.
The two events were happening alongside each other, like when we had the Devon Double Rise Championship a few weeks ago. However, this time you had to choose which one to shoot – both wasn’t an option after the confusion and delays we had then!
I wasn’t involved in the Single Barrel team this year due to some unforeseen developments in our selection process, so shot the DTL to remedy my very poor performance from the day before.
The Devon team we fielded wasn’t as strong as it could have been, but not many shooters went for the selection this year anyway. Single Barrel just doesn’t have the following that DTL does, and a big part of it must be that there’s no second cartridge as an insurance policy. Nobody likes missing targets, but that’s no reason not to shoot it. After all, you have to do something to get better at it!
In the end, it was Somerset who took their revenge for Devon beating them to the DTL shield by 1 point at North Cornwall last weekend, by winning everything – Seniors, Veterans and Ladies (the only county to field a ladies team). Once again, there were no juniors to shoot for the Junior shield, which is another very worrying sign for our sport.
Their A Team of Tony Dore, Dave Bland, Phil Stott, Mark Baker, and Malcolm Brown scored 443/500 to win the Team Shield, but it was a close run thing. Somerset B (John Bradnam, Martin Taylor, Steve Parker, Pete Bugler, and Geoff Eltham) were 1 target behind them on 442/500, almost forcing a team shoot-off!
Devon (Nick Shadrick, Richard Ryan, Richard Chapple, Roger Lewis, and Stuart Taylor) were next with 438/500.
Then it was Cornwall A (Simon Ede, Keith Woolcock, Paul Martin, Dave Sleeman, and Colin Chidley) on 430/500, and lastly Cornwall B (Mike Browning, Andrew Harvey, Michael Cunningham, and Mark Lambley) on 313/500. They were severely handicapped by only having four in the squad, and with 5 scores to count, their final position was almost inevitable.
Pete Bugler, John Bradnam and Malcolm Brown secured the Veterans title convincingly with 187/200 (2 out of 3 scores count), and the duo of Wendy Spackman and Melissa Callum scored 157/200 to add to their Ladies team win from last week completely uncontested.
The DTL was just as interesting! Only 3 squads, but still a good battle!
The stand-out squad was Andy Vanstone, myself, Mike Webber and Lanyon Rowe, and I have to say, it’s a long time since I’ve shot on a squad with a rhythm and timing as good as that!
At halfway, Andy, Mike, and myself were absolutely inseperable on 50/146. Lanyon was a bit behind on 46/134, but we were pulling him along and he rose to the challenge with a 25/74 in round 3.
To my disbelief, I missed the first one out in my third round through being too careful. But that actually helped me because Andy and Mike were shooting really well, and now I had someone to chase! The brakes came off, and the rest of the targets knew without doubt that I was annoyed with them. Many ended their short flight in a cloud of dust!
After round 3, Andy was on 75/221 after a sizzling 25/75, Mike was 1 point behind him on 75/221, and I was in full-send mode putting them under as much pressure as I could on 74/218.
As so often with DTL, it all came down to the last round. Andy seemed to be feeling a bit of pressure with the end in sight, but that didn’t stop him from shooting another 25/73 to take the top spot, and 1st in AA Class, with a 100/294.
I did my best to turn the screws on him, but even if I’d had a perfect round I wouldn’t have caught up. As it was, my 25/74 saw me finish on a 99/292, which is much more like it.
Mike faltered a little with a 24/71 and ended on a 99/291. Very gracious of him to let me have overall second, haha, although he did win A Class by being the only one in it!
Darren Vicary won the battle for B Class with a 96/280 that included a very solid back 50 (including the only other 25/75 shot all day), and Jason Dyer once again triumphed in C Class with a 93/275.
Well shot to all trophy and class winners from both competitions, and thank you to Richard, Marilyn, Val, and everyone else involved in running the shoot, and making it a really fun and enjoyable day.
