Soo 04: Singles Round on Day 3

Stuart Lawrence on his match-winning turn against Jenny ClarkeIn the NZ vs. USA singles, all four of the 8:30 matches went to third games. Soo (USA) was first to finish, +26tp, -16tp, +12 against Hogan (NZ). Huneycutt's (USA) form improved today; he took game 1 against Hakes (NZ) +17 and had chances to win game 3, but Hakes came up the winner -17, +24tp, +8. Clarke (NZ) nearly finished a triple in game 1 against Lawrence (USA) despite jawsing the peel at rover and then jumping clean over it; she succeeded at bombarding partner through rover, but roqueted the ball on the croquet stroke. But a long hit-in a couple of turns later gave her the game, +24. She went break up in game 2, but Lawrence eventually took control for +13tp. Clarke again had the first break in game 3, but Lawrence managed an adventurous pickup to build a break and leave an NSL, and closed out the match with another triple, +17tp. A few minutes later, Shilling (NZ) completed his own comeback against Morgan (USA), -17, +17, +24tp.

Two of the England vs. Australia doubles matches finished before any of the singles. As expected, Robert & Malcolm Fletcher (Australia) vs. Burch & Death (England) was a quick match, all three games +26tp. Death had the first triple, but Malcolm Fletcher had the other two, putting Australia up 6-4. Simon Hockey & Greg Fletcher (Australia) added another pair of Fletcher triples to the day's tally, as the Aussie pair won +19tp, +26tp. In Patel & Mulliner (England) vs. Forster & Dumergue (Australia), a Mulliner TPO resulted in an OTP win for the Aussies in game 1. But the English pair kept their team within striking distance by winning the match, -14otp, +17, +15, bringing the test match score to 7-5 Australia.

Chapman (NZ) beat Maloof (USA) in a high-quality match, +17tp, +26tp. Garrison (NZ) vs. Rothman (USA) was a more error-prone affair, Rothman winning +3, +16tp to make it a 3-3 split in the day's singles.

The pegged-down doubles match resumed with Hogan playing a wide join. Huneycutt ran penult smoothly, ending a few feet from rover but at a steep enough angle that Huneycutt opted to shoot at Hogan's ball; the shot missed. Hogan made a leave, Huneycutt cornered, and Shilling made 4-back and penult, then another leave, his ball north of corner IV and Hogan's ball about level with 6, a couple of yards in from the west boundary. Oddly, Huneycutt chose to shoot at Shilling's ball; he missed, and Shilling finished to level the match.

Shilling had the first clip to 4-back in game 3. Morgan hit the lift and needed two turns to get to 4-back with a defensive leave. Huneycutt broke down at 2-back with two peels done. Shilling went round, peeling Morgan's ball at rover and pegging it out. The match has again been pegged down, 2-back and box vs. 1 and peg, NZ to play. The test match score is 7-4 USA.

Chapman 02: Tough Day at the Office

New Zealand's Chris Shilling in play on Day 2 versus Team USA Day 2 was another day of doubles for New Zealand, with Aiken Hakes & Toby Garrison taking on Jeff Soo & Stuart Lawrence, Paddy Chapman & Jenny Clarke taking on David Maloof & Ben Rothman, and Joe Hogan & Chris Shilling taking on Danny Huneycutt & Stephen Morgan. As it turns out, it was a tough day at the office for New Zealand.

Jeff & Stuart won their match 2-1 - in the third game, NZ were TPOing the Americans, but failed to gain a rush to peg out Jeff's ball. Stuart held his nerve to finish his 4-ball break to the peg and take the victory. Paddy & Jenny were involved in a high-quality first game versus Ben and David, however the second game contained a number of unexpected errors. In the end, it went to a decider, with NZ having a TP opportunity to win but missing a 7-yard return after rover with all the peels done. From there, the Americans took the game and match 2-1, with a +2 scoreline in the third. At the time of writing, Joe & Chris' game has been pegged down, with the match score currently 1-0 to the Americans. The situation in the second game is USA penult and box vs NZ 4b and peg.

It is very unusual for a match to last so long on such easy lawns, however it just goes to prove that MacRob is different from usual tournaments, with a lot more determination to win from all players. The pegged-down ending will hopefully be played to a conclusion sometime over the next couple of days.

Soo 03: US Picks Up Two More Wins

USA's Ben Rothman peels rover en route to putting his team up 4-1NZ vs. USA continued in doubles while Australia vs. England switched to singles. Chapman & Clarke (NZ) quickly took the lead against Rothman & Maloof (USA), +17tp with Chapman tripling. In Hakes & Garrison (NZ) vs. Lawrence & Soo (USA), Soo failed a triple attempt but then hit the opponent's leave to take game 1. No croquet for Lawrence & Soo in game 2, Hakes finishing with a tidy triple. Hogan & Shilling (NZ) vs. Huneycutt & Morgan was only getting around to finishing game 1 by that point, Huneycutt hitting the peg from corner III to win the game.

On the upper lawns, Burch (England) breezed to a +26tp, +26tp win over Hockey (Australia), leveling the test match at 2-all. Death (England) vs. Forster (Australia) was a three-triples match, Death winning the outer games to put England ahead. World #1 player Robert Fletcher (Australia) righted the ship for his team with two triples to beat Mulliner (England), the second following a failed sextuple attempt by the Englishman (and current World Champion). Greg Fletcher (Australia) vs. Hopgood (England) was another three-triples match, Fletcher overcoming a game 1 loss to put his team ahead again.

With only seven lawns available, two singles matches had a late start. In the Captain's match, Dumergue (Australia) had all the action in a +26tp, +26tp win over Patel (England). Malcolm Fletcher (Australia) had a heartbreaking game 1 loss to Maugham (England), having all but finished the triple but then missing a short roquet; Maugham controlled the rest of the match to make it an even start in the singles. Australia leads the test match 5-4.

Soo had a 4th-turn OSL to begin game 3; Hakes then had a bit of good luck in snicking off the peg to roquet. His TPO attempt never seemed in doubt, until his luck was reversed at rover, where his ball crept through just the wrong amount on the Irish peel. He was able to roquet the escape ball, but failed to get a rush back to the peg. Lawrence finished off the contact to extend the Americans' lead to 3-1.

An exchange of errors led to a game 2 win for Rothman & Maloof. Chapman was set to finish the match in game 3, but a jump through rover and lack of a proper deep ball left a seven or eight yard shot, which he missed. Down 0-24, Maloof went round and Rothman tripled to ensure another winning day for USA.

Hogan and Huneycutt both struggled in game 2. Hogan finally got a ball around and pegged out Morgan's ball, with Huneycutt for 3-back and Shilling for 4-back. A couple of turns later the game has been pegged down. It is NZ to play, with Hogan's ball just south of the peg, Shilling's ball a few inches out of corner I, and Huneycutt in position at penult (his hoop).

2017 MacRob Reader Q&A #01

With the 2017 MacRobertson Shield off and running, most readers should have noticed that we have Jeff Soo from Team USA and Paddy Chapman from Team New Zealand both doing player journals. In addition, we have another correspondent that will provide additional analysis at the end of each round.

For true fans, I hope you've noticed the live feed that runs each day on Lawn Four. It's a simple security camera concept (www.nest.com) and for a one-view, overhead look it does well if you have a good-sized computer monitor. The Macrobertson Shield site indicates Chrome is best for a browser, but Chrome actually generates an error for me, so I have been using ... wait for it .... Internet Explorer. I know right? Gasp.

Anyway, if you pop up the croquetscores.com commentary, that works pretty well. Really enjoyed watching Stephen Mulliner going for his Sextuple yesterday against Robert Fletcher (didn't work out and he lost 0-2).

QUESTION AND ANSWER

We have had a few reader questions in the comments and Jeff Soo took a moment to answer:

What was the nature of the appeal concerning the English team order?
Jamie Burch is their #1, despite being ranked below Maugham and Mulliner.

I notice that Matthew Essick is not on the USA team for this test. Is this the week he's off, or is he not on the team?
Matthew is a high school senior and can't miss that many days of school and still graduate, so he will only play the middle test (vs. England).

Why are they using the powder-coated hoops instead of the super hoops?
The club owns Rodoni hoops. They are excellent hoops, and it would be a significant expense and significant effort to import Superhoops. The Superhoops probably would be a bit more of a challenge, but that didn't seem worth the effort and expense. The main issue is the soil. To keep the grass alive in the desert summer they have to water every day.

STATISTICAL LOOK

I also wanted to add this bit of data on rankings and the line-ups posted by Phil Cordingley:

A quick bit of analysis following the announcement of the team orders last night. With apologies for format (won't let me use any useful HTML to make it look pretty), the table shows for each team the root mean square of the differences between players' relative ranking within their team according to their world ranking (WR), and their actual order as announced last night. The lower the number, the closer the announced order is to what the WR would suggest. By comparison, a team which put its worst player first and shuffled everybody else down one position would score 5.48. I draw no conclusions myself ;-)

Country S.D.
New Z. 4.36
Australia 3.16
England 2.83
USA 1.41

Soo 02: Day 1 Reveals Easy Conditions

Smiles for the Aussies as Dumergue & Forster win to give their team a 2-1 lead over England

Both test matches started with doubles, as usual. The English got on the board quickly, Maugham & Hopgood winning 2-0 over Robert & Malcolm Fletcher (Australia) with a pair of Maugham triple peels. Next to finish were Soo & Lawrence (USA) over Hogan & Shilling (NZ), the Kiwis not taking croquet and Lawrence tripling on turns seven and ten, for an excellent MacRobertson Shield debut. Rothman & Maloof (USA) each had a triple peel in their 2-0 win over Garrison & Hakes (NZ), putting USA up 2-0. In the Burch & Death (England) vs. Forster & Dumergue (Australia) match, Burch had a quick triple to win game 1. Death did a TPO in game 2, but Forster finished to level the match.

ROUND ONE PHOTO GALLERY

On the lower lawns, Greg Fletcher tripled to win game 1 with partner Hockey (Australia) against Mulliner & Patel (England). Mulliner did most of a DPO in game 2, but missed the pegout, giving Fletcher an easy finish, which brought Australia level with England for the test at 1-all. In Clarke & Chapman (NZ) vs. Huneycutt & Morgan (USA), Clarke had some struggles with control, but Huneycutt couldn't find his shooting touch, the Kiwis winning 2-0 to bring the test match score to 2-1 in favor of USA.

Aussie captain Dumergue put together a well-controlled triple peel to end the day's play and put his team up 2-1 in the test.

By test match standards, the conditions are very easy. The lawns are a comfortable medium pace, and the combination of sandy (and well-watered) soil and powder-coated hoops makes for easy hoop-running and peeling. In the afternoon the wind picked up, giving a taste of what could be the main challenge during the series. Thus far 11 of the 13 games have finished with triple peels, and this rate of tripling seems likely to continue.

Chapman 01: A Fair Result on Day One

Defenders of the Shield: Team New ZealandThe New Zealand team have now been in Rancho Mirage four days, with most of this taken up with practising on the picturesque lawns of the Mission Hills Croquet Llub. Our team comprises Jenny Clarke (captain), Joe Hogan, Toby Garrison, Aiken Hakes, Chris Shilling, Harps Tahurangi (week 2 onwards) and myself.

ROUND ONE PHOTO GALLERY

The Mission Hills club has excellent facilities and is a really nice place to spend time. Our impression of the lawns is that they are nothing at all like NZ playing conditions. The lawns here are soft and green, with very forgiving hoops. This means that almost 100% emphasis is placed on shooting, with breaks and large peeling turns taken somewhat for granted. We are likely to see some very short playing days, where all matches may be finished at or shortly after lunch.

Day 1 started in glorious sunshine (as per usual) with a very strong start by the USA. On lawn 3, Joe and Chris had a slightly difficult start due to their opponents playing exceptionally well in beating them “no croquet” - we will see a lot of “no croquet” games over the coming days due to the playing conditions.

Aiken Hakes and Toby Garrison also had a tough day at the office, although a slightly more interactive match vs Ben Rothman and David Maloof, with the Americans eventually winning 2-0.

Jenny and myself had an excellent first game vs Stephen Morgan and Danny Huneycutt, but with the wind picking up in the second game there were a couple of errors from both sides before Jenny and I scraped over the line.

So at the end of day 1, USA lead NZ 2-1 with still 18 points up for grabs. All in all, a fair result from the first day’s play.

PLAYER JOURNAL FROM PADDY CHAPMAN

MacRob 17: Live Video of NZ/US Doubles

Live stream of Team USA playing the reigning MacRobertson Shield champs New Zealand starts with David's and Ben Rothman's doubles match against Toby Garrison/Aiken Hakes this morning with practice at 8:30 and play at 9 am pacifi and 12 noon East Coast time. The link is:

http://video.nest.com/live/qzcdLKLw83

The MacRobertson Shield website has all the matches listed under the schedule icon.
http://www.2017macrobertsonshield.com/

Soo 01: 2017 MacRob Preview

Defending champion NZ team practicing shortly before the opening ceremony

After many months of preparation from organizers and players alike, the 25th MacRobertson Shield is about to begin. New Zealand looks to successfully defend the Shield, something they have never done before. Australia, making history with a team including three brothers, hope to make more history by winning the Shield for the first time since 1935. England hope to return to the norm: a GB or England team has won the Shield 14 times. USA look to defy the rankings and international expectations by winning the Shield for their first time ever.

After team orders were announced, the Australian and New Zealand teams mounted appeals against England's team order. USA supported England, and the Tournament Director cast the deciding vote to deny the appeal. The team orders (singles in order of merit, doubles ordered arbitrarily):

USA
1. Rothman
2. Maloof
3. Soo
4. Huneycutt
5. Morgan
6. Lawrence

1. Rothman & Maloof
2. Huneycutt & Morgan
3. Soo & Lawrence

NEW ZEALAND
1. Chapman
2. Garrison
3. Hakes
4. Hogan
5. Clarke
6. Shilling

1. Chapman & Clarke
2. Garrison & Hakes
3. Hogan & Shilling

AUSTRALIA
1. Robert Fletcher
2. Hockey
3. Dumergue
4. Malcolm Fletcher
5. Greg Fletcher
6. Forster

1. R. Fletcher & M. Fletcher
2. Forster & Dumergue
3. Hockey & G. Fletcher

ENGLAND
1. Burch
2. Mulliner
3. Maugham
4. Patel
5. Death
6. Hopgood

1. Death & Burch
2. Maugham & Hopgood
3. Mulliner & Patel

In the first round, NZ plays USA and Australia plays England.

Soo #07: Trifecta for Morgan

Stephen Morgan with the Stark Cup after winning the AC Nationals Singles Title
Stephen Morgan and Danny Huneycutt overcame a game-one loss to win the doubles title. Morgan then made it a sweep by winning the singles 2-0. Morgan becomes the current holder of three USCA national titles.

PHOTO GALLERY

Daniel Pailas won the singles Plate. He won his final game with a delayed triple peel to clinch the award.

The doubles final featured a wild three-ball finish, +1. The singles final was more one-sided, Morgan tripling in game 1 and controlling most of game 2. Soo had a chance to get back into the match after Morgan didn't quite finish another triple, but Morgan made yet another long hit-in to put the match away, +24tp, +16.

SINGLES KNOCKOUT SCORES

Quarterfinals
Jeff Soo 26-14, 26-5 over Danny Huneycutt
Stuart Lawrence 26-14, 26-11 over Dan Pailas
Brian Cumming 26tp-0, 25-26, 26-10 over Chris Patmore
Stephen Morgan 26-13, 23-26, 26-15 over Simon Jenkins

Semifinals
Jeff Soo 26-8, 26-9 over Stuart Lawrence
Stephen Morgan 26tp-0, 26-19 over Brian Cumming

Final
Stephen Morgan 26tp-2, 26-10 over Jeff Soo

FULL EVENT RESULTS
croquetscores.com/2017/ac/us-national-championship/singles-ko

Soo #06: Morgan vs Soo

Stuart Lawrence in doublesThe remaining doubles semi-final finally finished, Danny Huneycutt and Stephen Morgan winning game two, which had been spread over three days.

The singles plate has a three-way tie on +2 net wins, with two more players on +1, so there's still plenty to play for.

I made it to the singles final and will play Stephen Morgan. Morgan will be looking to become the simultaneous holder of the GC and AC national singles titles, while I am hoping to pick up my second AC singles title.

The doubles final has already started. My partner Stuart Lawrence and I won game 1 +18. Each side has a clip on 4b in game 2. Huneycutt and Morgan have the innings, but we are next to play when we restart.

CroquetScores.Com Results:
croquetscores.com/2017/ac/us-national-championship