Dave Kibble won the COWhorn
[<<] [>>] by Roger Wood
at Compton
30th July 2017
(AC)
Saturday's weather began promisingly enough but the rain came at lunchtime and continued, very heavy at times, for the rest of the day. Fortunately Sunday was completely dry with pleasant sunny intervals. There were 6 new faces (Chrises Coull and O'Byrne, Alan Edwards, Gaitleys Daphne and David plus Colin Hemming) amongst this year's field of 16, together with "lost Lamb" Annabel McDiarmid returning after a break of 28 years! However, none was equal to the guile of COWhorn fixtures Dave Kibble and Ian Vincent who drove home with the trophies.
Following last year's pattern it was decided to play best-of-3s from round 2. Even though all the round 2 matches were concluded in two games, by late afternoon on Saturday everyone was thoroughly soaked and the lawns were starting to show signs of puddling, so the hope of completing the first games of the semi-finals that evening had to be abandoned. At this stage Luc Berthouze, COWhorn winner in 2016, and Joel Taylor had each won with two triple, although Luc had had a narrow squeak in the previous round coming back to win against Alan Edwards +1. On Sunday both closely fought semis were also won in straight games. Against Annabel Joel followed a +3 win with a late triple while Dave demonstrated his three-ball break skills to win from both his clips on hoop 1 when Luc was peg and box. As it turned out the decision to play a single super-advanced final instead of a best-of-3 resulted in an unexpectedly early finish with Dave Kibble's speedy +26 quadruple peel, his only peeling finish. This was not quite enough to overtake Joel in the race for the Ace Peeler's helmet where last year's winner and runner-up places were exchanged.
In the Swiss only Nigel Polhill and Chris O'Byrne achieved triples. As ever, quite a few hopefuls were in contention for the COWbell, but Ian Vincent just nudged in front at the last with a win over Alan Edwards.
Knockout for the COWhorn
| Round 1 |
| Dave Kibble beat Daphne Gaitley +18 |
| Jonathan Lamb beat Chris O'Byrne +19 |
| Paul Castell beat Ian Vincent +5 |
| Luc Berthouze beat Alan Edwards +1 |
| Annabel McDiarmid beat Chris Coull +20 |
| Nigel Polhill beat David Gaitley +25 |
| Andrew Gregory beat Philip Windred +7 |
| Joel Taylor beat Colin Hemming +19tp |
| Round 2 |
| Dave Kibble beat Jonathan Lamb +6 +8 |
| Luc Berthouze beat Paul Castell +10tp +17tp |
| Annabel McDiarmid beat Nigel Polhill +5tp +13 |
| Joel Taylor beat Andrew Gregory +11tpo +26tp |
| Semi-finals |
| Dave Kibble beat Luc Berthouze +16 +1 |
| Joel Taylor beat Annabel McDiarmid +3 +7tp |
| Final |
| Dave Kibble beat Joel Taylor +26qp |
| 3rd place |
| Annabel McDiarmid beat Luc Berthouze +20 |
Swiss for the Cowbell
Winner: Ian Vincent (3/4)
(4/6) Chris Coull, Jonathan Lamb
(3/5) Alan Edwards
(3/6) Paul Castell, Nigel Polhill
(2/5) Andrew Gregory
(2/8) Chris O'Byrne
(1/5) Daphne Gaitley, Colin Hemming, Philip Windred
(0/5) David Gaitley
Ace peeler: Joel Taylor; Runner up: Dave Kibble
COWpat: David Gaitley
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