14th October 2011 Inter Parish Competition
The first Inter Parish competition today attracted teams from six of the Island’s Parishes.See photos in gallery.
Two rounds were played; the first for doubles and the second for triples. Where parishes had more than the required six players wishing to take part, they substituted in the second round so that all got a chance to play. Each parish had a game against each other parish during the afternoon.
After the doubles round, both St Clement and St Mary were unbeaten having won all their three games. St Helier, St Martin and St Ouen had each won one of their games and just St Peter were still to secure a win. While one game finished quite quickly with a 13-0 result, others were closely fought and three games finished with the losing team into double figures. Having recently joined the Magic Touch league St Martin proved a hard team to beat.
In the second round the ‘crunch’ came when St Clement and St Mary went ‘head to head’. This was a win for the more experienced St Mary’s who won the game 13-5 but the other St Clement triples won 13-2 and thus ensured second place overall for their parish. It should be noted however, that St Mary were one player down due to illness, and St Peter kindly ‘loaned’ one of their group for each round to assist St Mary in their wins!
St Peter’s came into their own in the triples winning both of their games 13-12! One of their players Francis le Riche is 92 years old, which proves age is no barrier to taking up the sport!
The final placings were:
St Mary 5 wins +32
St Clement 4 wins +28
St Martin 2 wins + 4
St Peter 2 wins -25
St Helier 1 win -17
St Ouen 1 win -22
Thanks are due to the Jersey Petanque club who kindly loaned their premises for the competition.
The competition was played in wonderful sunshine with friendly rivalry between the parishes.
Here’s hoping this will be the first of many such competitions.