Will adds to the Cadets success..
Cadet Captain Will Percival had a great weekend at Orsett last weekend by winning the men's Scratch match play title beating Tom Drake in the final.
The top 15 from the Secretary's Cup qualified recently to join last year's winner in the draw. The draw was littered with Thornton Cup players, so no match was ever going to be easy. After 2 matches Will was to play favourite, Mark Whiten in the semi-final with Tom up against last year's Champion, Neil Gale. Will played really well to beat a tiring Mark and with Tom throwing many birdies at Neil, the final looked to be a grand affair. Will got out the blocks quickly and maintained control from then on. He closed out the match 5 and 4, afterwards he put his trophy down to his caddie and good friend Alfie Buttle who caddied for him all weekend.
Will now has the Champion of Champions event where he plays the Club Strokeplay champion for the right to be called Club Champion.
Oh so close in the Ladies Club Championship…
On the same weekend, the Ladies held their Club Championship for both gross and nett on Sunday. A gruelling 36 hole stroke play event, thankfully the weather was kind. The both trophies are always close and this year no different as Tina Priebatsch overcame the field by just one shot from runner up Angie Paton.
Winner of the Nett prize was Daphne Abrahams who had passed comment that morning in the shop "that for the life of me I don`t know why I`m playing 36 holes?" Well, nett 67 in the morning says we do Daphne!
Congratulations to both winners on the day and well done to all who played the 36 hole event.
Wayne Rooney ties Bobby Charlton's scoring record and Wales have to wait a little longer to confirm their place at the 2016 Euros. Rooney was always going to score, wasn't he against lowly San Marino to tie Sir Bobby's longstanding record and book England their spot in France next year. He will surely add to that in the coming matches and give others a target that may take longer to reach than the one he equalled; but will he be regarded as an England great?
Wales suffered in their Euro qualifying match with Israel a "blind" referee again, anyone else remember the Irish ref who gave a penalty to New Zealand to beat Wales in the dying seconds all those years ago with the oval ball? He was the only person in the whole stadium to see the dive by Andy Dalton from the lineout as a "push". I believe he never refed in Wales again after that although he was offered a free trip down the pit on the Monday after the game. Perhaps the Croatian ref and goal line assistant could brush up on anatomy parts as the arm is definitely not the chest, especially when it's fully extended!
With the Rugby World Cup only days away, England put on a fine performance with a strong win over Ireland who need to increase their momentum if they are to be a force in the knockout stages. Scotland lost again and it's hard to see them getting too far but Wales had 2 massive blows dealt to them with Rhys Webb and then goal machine Leigh Halfpenny both getting carried off. Wales have now lost both players and it will make it tougher to make it out of their "group of death" which contains, England and Australia, their other bogey team.
Are you Strictly or X Factor? Let me know what your other halves make you watch when you're at home on a Saturday evening if you can't get the sport on! For the record I can think of at least 12 reasons to watch Strictly and one at best for X Factor!
Have a good week on the links,