The Ayres, 19 October
The first half of the 2024 Inter-Club All-Rounder was shot at Blue Point this Saturday, and saw thirty competitors from both clubs take to the stands in near perfect conditions.
English Skeet, DTL, and English Sporting were chosen to showcase not only the outstanding talent within both clubs but also the first-rate facilities, and to make scoring easier across all three disciplines we settled on three points awarded for all targets hit, with second-barrel DTL kills being the exception and netting two points.
English Skeet
Meary Veg dominated the first round of Skeet with Roman Sammer one point short of a straight, closely followed by James Simpson on 23 and Will Rand on 22, leaving Jeff Corkill and Paul Mihailovits representing The Ayres on 21. Also on 21 was Rachel Bowen-Matthews, gallantly stepping up last minute to stand in for Joe Faragher on Meary Veg’s side.
It was a case of ‘all change’ for the second round as The Ayres found their stride with Dave Corlett on 24, followed by Corkill and Mihailovits on 22 and leaving Meary Veg’s Sammer, Simpson and Will Rand to mop up with 21 each – no mean feat given some very unpredictable targets.
Overall the English Skeet was hotly contested and resulted in a perfect draw, with each side despatching exactly 210 targets and earning 630 points. Congratulations to Meary Veg’s Roman Sammer and The Ayres’ Dave Corlett for being the high scorers with 135 and 132 points respectively.
| The Ayres | Meary Veg |
|---|---|
| 210 / 630 | 210 / 630 |
Down the Line
Meary Veg dominated the first round of DTL thanks to Mike Walker’s 75 point straight followed by Ted Kermeen on 72 and Stevie Craine with 68, leaving Aaron Wade and Phil Ward to pick up 66 points each for The Ayres.
Aaron Wade put in a strong performance for round two with the only other straight of the day, netting 75 points for The Ayres while Meary Veg’s Mike Walker bagged 73 ahead of Callum and Stevie Craine with 72 and 71 respectively.
At the end of the second round it was Walker’s consistency which propelled Meary Veg to a DTL victory with 148 points, just two shy of a perfect score, with Aaron Wade and Ted Kermeen in joint second on 141.
| The Ayres | Meary Veg |
|---|---|
| 208 / 598 | 236 / 691 |
English Sporting
If the DTL round tipped the scales in Meary Veg’s favour then English Sporting was The Ayres chance to redress the balance, and our hosts wasted no time in putting on a course of technical and challenging targets: five stands, five pairs each, none of which looked all that difficult until it was your turn in the cage.
Jack Kneen was the man of the day where Sporting was concerned, despatching 36 of 50 targets followed by John Taylor on 35, with Alan Brew and Marty Kneen bringing 34 birds to complete The Ayres dominance in Sporting.
Meary Veg were some way behind, led by Micheal Cross on 28 and Mark Barnett on 27, with George Davies reeling in 25, and junior Zac Bellhouse bagging 24 in his first inter-club shoot.
| The Ayres | Meary Veg |
|---|---|
| 157 / 471 | 127 / 381 |
With the first half of this year’s Inter-Club behind us I’m sure we can agree it’s been a day of surprises, challenges, and first class entertainment. Just three points separate both teams as we look forward to the second instalment at Meary Veg on Saturday 26 October, followed by the final results and presentation at the Creg that afternoon.