Rain and the threat of lightning caused the morning session at Greeba to be cancelled but, since the thunderstorms proved to be non-existent and the rain dried up, the afternoon shoot was able to go ahead. As the scheduled round was a single distance metric, what used to be designated a 720, no adjustment was needed to the shooting calendar. Recurves shot over 70m, Barebows at 50m, Compounds also shot 50m but on a small target face. With the rain gone the archers were just left with a strong, gusting crosswind to deal with.
The Gents Recurve provide the largest field of the day with four entrants in the, very differing, shapes of Peter Howland, Alex Allen-Snell, James Hill and Danny Cowin. Alex found the centre immediately and was never in any danger of being caught. James started well but struggled to prevent his arrows from going low and right in the wind. Both Danny and Peter had nightmare starts with three out of six of their arrows failing to find the target. After the first dozen Danny and Peter found themselves in third and fourth place respectively but while Danny was able to adjust to the conditions and regroup to take second, Peter’s nightmare continued for the rest of the afternoon.
Lone lady Recurve Barbara Harris, having injured herself in a fall earlier in the week, needed help to string her bow but nevertheless managed to complete the round. Covered in KT tape she hobbled up and down the field while her unfeeling colleagues took the mickey. Danny Cowin told her to take the stone out of her shoe, Club Chairman Dave Moore made reference to Quasimodo and Alex Snell mimicked her limp. In spite of injury Barbara outshot all of the men except Alex, which either says a lot for her or not much for them.
Pete Mumford decided to take a rest from Compound and kept Stan Gorry and Lesley Sleight company in the Barebow division. The jury is still out as to whether Peter was there to encourage Stan or put him off, but the result was that Peter won. Lesley had a couple of misses but out shot both the men.
With Pete off playing at being a ‘stick and string’ merchant it was a straight head-to-head between Rhys and Dave Moore. It was neck and neck after the first dozen, Rhys just edging it by 2 points. Towards the end of the second dozen Dave had a miss which pretty much ended his chances. Dave’s only hope was that Rhys would have a miss himself somewhere along the line, but Rhys has hit a vein of form over recent weeks that has seen him back to his very best. Difficult conditions or not, Rhys just kept putting them in the middle and the gap between himself and his dad grew ever wider.
Shooting alongside the Moores was the Club’s only active Lady Compound, Joy Gough. Joy was experimenting with contact lenses on Sunday and almost immediately had a miss. The shoot seemed to be a bit of a grind for her, and although her scores improved over the last couple of dozen, Joy was not happy with her performance.
The only Junior to make it to the field was Jacob Brookes who shot a 50m round. He coped very well with the awkward crosswind and just missed breaking the 500 barrier by a handful of points.
Results: WA 70m-Gents Recurve- 1.A.Allen-Snell 72/502/8/4, 2.D.Cowin 69/449/4/1, 3.J.Hill 69/374/0/0, 4.P.Howland 61/308/0/0. Ladies Recurve-B.Harris 72/473/2/1. WA 50m: Barebow – Gents- 1.P.Mumford 67/461/5/4, 2.S.Gorry 68/353/1/0. Ladies-L.Sleight 70/468/3/0. Gents Compound- 1.R.Moore 72/658/27/11, 2.D.Moore 71/617/13/6. Ladies Compound-J.Gough 71/578/10/4. Junior Gents Recurve-J.Brookes 70/493/2/0.
Isle of Man Archery Club 