The Records Officer was confident that things could only get better, and, for some, they did. As a change from the full day’s shoot of a 1440 the archers tackled a WA 720, a single distance round with the distance determined by age/bow type. The weather was an improvement on the previous two Sundays, relatively warm but with a tricky crosswind.
Numbers were a disappointingly low. Rhys Moore was once again missing from the line-up having gone across to enjoy the sun in southern England. This left a straight head to head between Pete Mumford and Dave Moore in the Gents Compound division. Dave Moore led from start to finish and was never under any pressure even when he inexplicably put an arrow into the wrong target and then followed it up with another miss in the very next end. Pete found himself straying too often into the 8’s and 7’s to mount any kind of serious challenge and a miss towards the end set the seal on a sub par performance.
Joy Gough was joined by visitor Nat Merry of Oxford Archers. Nat, a full-time coach for Archery GB, showed her class by not only taking the win against Joy but also by out shooting the Gents to record the highest Compound score of the day. Joy’s morning got off to an awful start with two misses in the first end. A further two misses later had Joy shaking her head and resignedly admitting that ‘its just not happening today’.
James Hill kept Barbara Harris company on the Recurve distance of 70m. James made the better start of the two having two X’s in his first six arrows, while Harris had two misses in hers. A notoriously slow starter, Barbara eventually overhauled James at the end of the third dozen and stayed ahead in spite of another miss. Once again Harris struggled to get her arrows away towards the end of the shoot and put it down to fatigue due to lack practice until she discovered that her clicker had moved back and she was having to ‘over draw’ to get the arrow through. This had an impact on her overall score and she once again fell short of a Bowman score by 3 points.
It was good to see Colin Moore back in action Outdoors. Colin broke out his Bearpaw to shoot a Trad bow round. This, like the Compound, was shot over 50m but on a 122cm target rather than the 80cm the Compounds are restricted to. Never having shot the round before Colin recorded a pb.
Three Juniors turned up in the afternoon session. Erin Hainge took on Eloise Kinrade in the 122-30m and won, though the score line was much closer than in their previous encounter. Nathan Kinrade shot his last ever 122-50m as his birthday the following day means he moves up a distance. After struggling with the conditions the week before, Nathan enjoyed the sunshine and put in a terrific score of 564.
Results WA 720- Gents Compound 1.D.Moore 70/632/21/7, 2.P.Mumford 71/609/19/5. Ladies Compound 1.N.Merry 72/662/31/13, 2.J.Gough 68/547/9/5. Gents Recurve- J.Hill 70/430/6/4. Ladies Recurve- B.Harris 70/474/7/2. Gents Tradbow- C.Moore 69/411/3/-pb. U16’s 122-50 N.Kinrade 72/564/6/3. U12’s 122-30 1.E.Hainge 71/430/2/1pb, 2.E.Kinrade 70/406/1/-.
Isle of Man Archery Club 