Greg Bryant on day one at Plimmerton

2018 AC Worlds Report – Day 1

After visiting all five venues on yesterday's practice day, I spent most of day one at Waikanae with a short visit to Plimmerton in the early afternoon.

Waikanae is the furthest venue at about one hours drive outside Wellington and has a pretty five lawn club. The front four lawns are soft, green and over-watered, running at 10.8 seconds whilst lawn 5 is an excellent lawn with different grass and firmer subsoil, running at 12.2 seconds.

2018 AC Worlds Results | AC Worlds Articles

Round 1 saw Jose Riva start well with a third turn ball to 4-b, only to lose a few turns later to a Jonathan Powe triple peel. Michael Wright came close to whitewashing Greg Fletcher before his triple peel broke down at 4-b and Greg finished in two turns. The other games in the round were much lower quality, with Edmund Fordyce creating an upset by beating Pete Trimmer. The game between Tim Murphy and Nick Chapman was pegged down after 3.5 hours on lawn 5.

In Round 2, Jonathan Powe had another tp and bottom seeded Jace Hobbs had a great come from behind win to beat Michael Wright +4.

My visit to Plimmerton showed four lawns which were about as tricky as they get. Most of the lawns were bare earth with the odd patch of green grass here and there. There was a large slope from east to west and south to north and whilst the overall lawn speed was only around 11.5 seconds, there were some hoops that you simply couldn’t approach to 18” or shorter straight from one side. After over 3.25 hours, one game was poised at 8-8 and several games were eventually pegged down. At this stage, all games at Plimmerton were given a 3hr time limit (there are no time limits elsewhere).

Samir Patel at Waikanae. Click to Zoom.I returned to Waikanae for the big 1v3 group clash between Jose Riva and Jenny Clarke. Jenny overapproached hoop 1 on 3rd turn from a supershot opening and Jose hit, but misapproached 2-b 4th turn. Jenny went to 4-b 5th turn with an NSL and Jose lifted his h1 ball at h4 and hit the long lift, but immediately split off the lawn giving Jenny a 2 yarder with her 4-b ball or an 8 yarder with her h1 ball. She opted for the easy roquet and made a leave which got Jose to corner. Jenny made 3 hoops without any break and made a leave. Jose shot with h1 ball, missing narrowly. Jenny went to peg and 4-b with a B spread, Jose missed a 12 yarder and Jenny finished +19.

Jonathan Powe finished his day with a third triple peel to be the only player with three triples on day 1 – a great effort.

At the other venues, there were several upsets. Defending world champion, Stephen Mulliner lost games to both NZ youngsters, Felix Webby and Josh Freeth. Reg Bamford lost to Alison Sharpe. I’ll give a more detailed insight into the other venues over the coming days, but yesterday, Kelburn was running at 9.6, Wellington approximately 11 and Paraparaumu at 10.9. Greg Bryant lost to Ian Burridge who finished the day unbeaten.

One of the most unusual stories today was that the players on lawn 2 at Kelburn refused to play due to a huge 15 yard “sandpit” on one of the boundaries. The lawn was subsequently narrowed by four feet and play commenced, albeit somewhat late.

On my way back home, I popped into Paraparaumu in time to see Joakim Norback beat Stephen Forster – one of those key results that gives us increased hope that croquet is making huge strides in the minor nations.

I’ll be reporting from Paraparaumu tomorrow and may venture into Plimmerton again to see how players are coping with the “lunar landscape”.