The Indoor season got underway at Onchan on Sunday with the traditional opening Portsmouth. This consists of 60 arrows shot at the largest of the Indoor target faces-single for Recurves and three spot for Compounds. The Records Officer opened proceedings by calling for a round of applause for Danny Cowin who had found his way to Onchan for the first time in two years. She had forgotten to send him a map and was a little worried he might have trouble finding the place. The Records Officer also reminded Ralf Mitchell that archers only shoot three arrows at a time Indoors (except on a Worcester) as Ralf forgets every year. These formalities out of the way, the shoot began.
Rhys Moore found himself unopposed in the Gents Compound and employed a back tension release aid to try and iron out some of the flaws in his form which had crept in over the last couple of seasons. Rhys dropped only 19 points over the course of the morning and was happy enough with his performance.
Joy Gough was likewise the only competitor in the Ladies Compound. Joy felt she had hit too many 8’s but identified and area of her technique that needed to be worked on, which is always helpful.
The largest field of the day came in the Gents Recurve with Peter Howland, David Craine, Danny Cowin and Ralf Mitchell vying for top spot. None of them had a sight mark for Indoors except Ralf Mitchell who was a little the worse for wear and who remained in last place from start to finish. Peter Howland made the best start and had a slim lead after the first dozen. David Craine, having been warned not to listen to anything Ralf had to say about the subject of archery, put in a solid round which saw him only narrowly beaten into third place. Danny, after making some adjustments to his sight block, suddenly remembered he could shoot and surged ahead to take a comfortable win. This despite his frequent cries of ‘aww what’ when he pushed an arrow out into the red, and a passable imitation of a stream train puffing its way uphill when his arrows went further astray. Danny was dismissive of his male opponents and was more interested in beating the Records Officer. With her form in shreds after a miserable Outdoor season, Harris was vulnerable and gifted a miss to Cowin which he failed to capitalize on. For once Barbara finished strongly and she beat Danny by 4 points. She did not however record the highest Recurve score of the day, that honour went to Junior Gent Nathan Kinrade shooting in the afternoon session who eclipsed Barbara’s score by 1 point. Barbara’s actual opponent was Sarah Kennedy who put in a consistent performance and who thought she had broken the 500 point barrier for the first time before realizing that boss partner Stan Gorry had incorrectly added up her score and she was a point short.
Stan went toe to toe with Pete Mumford in the Gents Barebow. Pete was shooting for the first time in several weeks after sustaining injuries in a cycling accident. It was no surprise that Peter made a slow start and was never really any threat to Stan over the course of the morning.
Erin Hainge like many of the other’s had no sight mark and found the change to Indoors challenging. Erin still manged to put in a personal best score for the round and carried on into the afternoon session to shoot a Double Portsmouth which was of course another pb for the talented youngster.
Results Portsmouth: Gents Compound- R.Moore 60/581/41. Ladies Compound- J.Gough 60/542/11. Gents Recurve- 1.D.Cowin 60/515/16, 2.P.Howland 59/475/7, 3.D.Craine 60/472/6pb, 4.R.Mitchell 60/439/6. Ladies Recurve- 1.B.Harris 59/519/13, 2.S.Kennedy 60/499/10pb. Gents Barebow- 1.S.Gorry 59/439/4, 2.P.Mumford 57/381/4. Jr Gents Recurve- N.Kinrade 60/520/11. Junior Ladies Recurve- E.Kinrade 60/466/7.
Isle of Man Archery Club 