The WY League games come thick and fast at this time of year and today it was our turn to visit Leeds and try out their new terrains.
They were interesting… still clearly new, the surface underneath was similar to our pebble beach when we first laid it but the stuff on top was much finer. Add in quite a severe diagonal slope, all running towards Kirkstall Abbey, it was a track that took some getting.
Our team were all there early to get a much needed practice ready for the opening triples.
Triples
In the triples Clive, Kath and I took on Richard, Liz and and Kevin from Leeds whilst Roger, Colin and Anita took on Paul, Rosanna and Janice. Some of this is made up of notes from Tony who sat the triples out.
The games could hardly have started any more differently for our two sides. In the other match to me our team combined really well to take a 10-0 lead after three ends with fantastic play from all three of the gang.
In my match we found ourselves 6-0 down in the same three ends. We didn’t quite find the length and line and Liz from Leeds pointed us to death, with Richard shooting out anything close.
In the next end we engineered a good spot to be lying shot after my first boule wasn’t beaten by the first 5 Leeds boules. Even still Richard’s last boule managed to trail the coche and leave them lying 3.
We worked out a good idea of a shot between us asking Clive to try and shoot the coche over the back for 4. Coming up with a shot is one thing but executing it is another and Clive played a brilliant shot, doing exactly what we envisaged and giving us a 4 to get back in the game.
Back over on the other terrain the Leeds team started a comeback of their own. In the next few ends they managed to equal our haul of 10 points and tied up the game at 10-10!
In the next end they managed to find another two, moving 12-10 in front and leaving us with our backs against the wall….
Back over in our game and our 6-4 deficit became 9-4 and we too were staring down the barrel of a defeat…
But then we found a bit more of the form that made us good winners next week. We got a three, a couple of twos and a one to get 12-9 in front with probably one or two opportunities missed to score more and close out the game.
In the next end we gave that three point advantage up with a poor end, a bad bit of luck and the wrong side of one of the closest measures of all time (Clive down with the measure and an aerial but he still had to concede the third) to tie the game 12-12 and leave us with a sudden death end for the point.
Roger, Colin and Anita’s match finished first and thankfully with a result in our favour. Despite seeing a 10-0 lead turn into a 12-10 deficit, the regrouped and played a brilliant end to get 3 and win the game 13-12! Well done team, it can be hard to see such a big lead go but well done for sticking together and getting it over the line.
Our final end really did have it all. Liz, put one 18 inches front the coche, I replied with one that touched the coche but Richard (as he had done pretty much all game to be fair) shot it out. I put another decent boule in 12 inches away and Liz couldn’t improve it but Kevin did at the second time of asking beating mine by 3 mill (we seemed to just lose every close measure today!)
We had 3 boules left to their 1 but Kath threw a couple that ended up agonisingly close but short and it was all down to Clive with his last boule. I think a couple of times today Clive was disappointed with some of his boules (being overly harsh on himself I thought!) but every time we needed a big shot he delivered and here he got one through the gaps and six inches away.
So it came down to a single boule. A single shot from Richard, who had been annoyingly accurate for the rest of the match. If he took out Clive’s last they’d win and if he didn’t then we had completed a good comeback…
My next action was a fist pump, probably more suited to the upcoming Euros in Germany than a Petanque game in Leeds but I don’t apologise for celebrating a great win against a team that had played tremendously well.
Richard fired his shot over the top of Clive’s boule and so we won the game 13-12. Credit to their trio who made it a fantastic game and Richard turned in one of the best boule-to-boule shooting performances I’ve seen in a long while and was very unlucky not to be a winner in this match.
The Doubles
If you’ve got this far you might be pleased to know that the doubles write up is considerably shorter, for two reasons.
Firstly I had to leave for the school run, missed all the action and wrote this up from a brief phone call from Dad and secondly it isn’t great reading for the casual Heckmondwike follower.
Roger and Tony struggled to find their like and length on their terrain and the Leeds team moved everything out when they did. They went down 13-0 in quick time to give Leeds their first point of the match.
This became two not too long after as Clive and Kath lost 13-4 to Richard and Liz. This Leeds pair played well in the first game (did I mention that?) and so if they played anything like this time then The Westleys would have been in for a really tough match and that proved to be the case.
With the overall match in the balance things looked good for our final pair of Anita and Colin. They were 9-7 to the good and Anita looking to make it a perfect seven wins in the league.
But then in an end which would ultimately be the last we were lying one with just two shots to go from Leeds. The first was a shot which cleared out our counting ball and (perhaps slightly fortuitously) some of our other close boules which meant the last ball could go in and make a six and the game was lost 13-9.
All together that was our second 3-2 loss in a row and means we now need two very strong victories in our final two games (plus the teams above dropping some points!) to have a chance of winning the league!
But there is still plenty of hope so let’s see what next week brings!
Heckmondwike Petanque Club 