There were mixed fortunes for the IoM archers at the weekend with contingents in action at home and away. Three club members travelled over to Newcastle to take part in a two day event; while at Greeba the round of the day was a WA 1440 shot as part of the Club’s Handicap League.
All the two shoots had in common was an intensely cold and tricky northerly wind.
Dave and Rhys Moore along with Barbara Harris made the trip to Tyneside to shoot in the Ninth Mauretania WRS Double WA720 and H2H hosted by The Bowman of Walker at the Benfield Centre of Sporting Excellence in Newcastle. It was a two day event consisting of a WA720 qualification round in the morning session, with individual head to head rounds in the afternoon of both days. Rhys Moore had the best result of the three in the Gent’s Compound. On day one Rhys qualified in sixth place but managed to win through the head to heads far enough to take the bronze medal. An unexpected miss causing him to lose the chance of shooting in the gold medal play-off. Dave qualified in fourth place on the first day but slipped to sixth after the head to heads. On the second day Rhys qualified in first place and Dave in sixth but both went out in the second round of the head to heads.
Barbara Harris had a rough time of it, as she found the energy sapping cold difficult to cope with. On day one she qualified in eleventh place but went out in the first of her head to head matches. On the second day, wearing so many layers she resembled the Michelin man, Harris managed to stay warm enough to win her first head to head match before crashing out in the second round. Barbara finished in eighth place and gained valuable experience having never shot the format before.
As it was only three archers actually shot the WA1440 round, Danny Cowin and Dave Berry (both Gent’s Recurve) and Joy Gough (Ladies Compound). The skies remained overcast until mid-afternoon and the gusting wind made life difficult at the boss.
Unusually for Danny Cowin he put three arrows wide of the mark and recorded a very low score by his standards. It was good enough to take the scratch honours but after the handicap was applied Danny finished in dead last. Dave Berry missed with seven of his arrows but recorded a season’s best score to finish seventh overall. Joy Gough put in a solid enough round but did not catch fire and her score was only good enough for eighth after handicapping.
Unable to reach the furthest Gent’s distance of 90m, Peter Howland shot another Metric I round (70/60/50/30m) adding 92 points to his pb and taking the overall win by a considerable margin. Sisters Tilly Ashton and Lily Priestnal were the only other archers to shoot a full day’s round. Tilly opted to go up an age group and a Metric III (50/40/30/20m) for the first time and shot a decent benchmark score which put her into fifth place. Lily had a tremendous shoot, adding 79 points to her pb for the Metric V (30/20/15/10m), hitting a six gold end with her final six arrows at the 20m distance and setting a New Club Record into the bargain. Lily’s hard work secured second place after the handicap was applied.
Pete Mumford and Billy Lightfoot contented themselves with shooting a Long Metric (90/70m), Pete because of a lack of practice and Billy because of an encounter with some food stuffs that were not gluten free. A wrung-out Mr Lightfoot did well to complete the morning session and managed to scrape in just ahead of Danny Cowin to finish ninth, while Pete came in sixth.
Jacob Brookes and Nathan Kinrade both shot a Short Metric III (30/20m), Nathan for the first time. His efforts were good enough for third place with Jacob finishing fourth.
Also shooting were Ralf Mitchell, Gareth Leather and Graham Makepeace-Warne. All three shot a Short Metric (50/30m) towards their Outdoor Handicap.
Results: Metric Handicap – 1.P.Howland 1568 (119/636/9/1)pb, 2.L.Priestnal 1454 (144/1229/37/16)NCR,pb, 3.N.Kinrade 1446 (71/497/6/0)pb, 4.J.Brookes 1438 (72/582/11/2), 5.T.Ashton 140/1043/32/7), 6.P.Mumford 1412 (72/591/10/0), 7.D.Berry 1404 (137/946/9/3), 8.J.Gough 1395 (144/1227/37/13), 9.B.Lightfoot 1389 (71/584/11/2), 10.D.Cowin 1362 (141/1023/17/6). Short Metric Scratch: Gents Recurve- 1.G.Leather 63/368/2/0, 2.R.Mitchell 60/310/0/0. Gents Longbow – G.Makepeace-Warne 39/193/0/0.
Isle of Man Archery Club 