Predictions for Sunday’s weather were not good, but fortunately the rain blew through on Saturday and settled into reasonably good shooting conditions. The round of the day was supposed to be a Metric I/Ladies WA 1440: 3 dozen arrows at each of four distances – 70, 60, 50 & 30m but for a variety of reasons several archers shot different rounds.
The Gents Compound turned into a straight father/son face off between David and Rhys Moore. While Rhys never looked in any danger of losing, he was pushed by Dave over the longer distances, but a poor 50m by the elder Moore saw Rhys take the win by a margin of 69 points. If Rhys hadn’t become a little careless over the final distance, and thrown three arrows out into the 8 ring, he would have broken his own Club Record, as it was he fell 3 points short.
The Ladies Compound was also a two-horse race between Aalin George and Joy Gough, unfortunately Joy had to pull out at the halfway stage due to a problem with her hand. A relatively weak 70m saw Aalin fall just short of the 1300 barrier but she still put in another solid Bowman First Class score.
Barbara Harris was the only Senior Recurve archer to tackle the round of the day as Alex Allen-Snell and Danny Cowin both felt that shooting the 60m distance was a waste of their time since it is not one that the Gents normally shoot. Instead, they went toe-to-toe in a WA 70m in the morning session and shot a Short Metric (50 & 30m) in the afternoon. After a dip in form at the end of the Indoor season and a dismal start to the Outdoor Alex finally found some form and the competition was neck and neck. Alex was leading over the first three dozen of the 70m round before Danny crept ahead by one point at the end of the fourth. Danny failed to take advantage of a miss by Alex in the fifth dozen and fell behind again and Alex went on to win by 8 points. The contest in the Short Metric of the afternoon was even closer. Again, Alex took the early lead opening up a 5 point gap by the end of the 50m. Danny never happy at 50 put in one of his best scores for years and was confident going into the final distance which is his favourite. By the end of the second dozen Danny had overturned the 5 point deficit and turned it into a 7 point lead. Victory looked to be his but after opening with a 10 in the final end, Danny suddenly hit a wall. In an effort to just ‘get rid of them’ his release became jerky and his final arrows went left. The result was that he lost by 1 point and Alex notched up another win.
Junior Erin Hainge for once did not break any Club Records. Shooting the Metric IV (40,30,20,10m), Erin was let down by her longest distance before rallying to within 2 points of her pb and Club record. Someone who was breaking records however was Pete Mumford. Pete, who again took advantage of the Archery GB changes to age and distance restrictions, shot up a storm in the Metric III (50,40,30,20m) where he used his Compound bow to break 1300 for the first time in his life. An ecstatic Mr Mumford promptly claimed a personal best, Club and National Record which made the Records Officer smile for the first time that day.
Results: Metric I Compound Gents- 1.R.Moore 144/1356/71/37, 2.D.Moore 142/1287/55/23. Ladies- A.George 144/1295/48/18sb. Ladies Recurve- B.Harris 140/922/8/2. Metric III- P.Mumford 144/1318/51/23. Metric IV- E.Hainge 144/1230/39/15. WA 70m- 1.A.Allen-Snell 71/508/4/1sb, 2.D.Cowin 72/500/7/2. Long Metric I- J.Gough 72/576/8/2. P.Howland 56/287/2/0. LM III- S.Gorry 70/436/4/2. Short Metric – N.Kinraid 66/273/5/2. Short Metric III- E.Kinraid 72/554/12/5.
Isle of Man Archery Club 