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Double joy for Christian as Castletown star shines

Thu, 24 Nov 2016


A 99 from Nigel Christian made the difference for Castletown as they got out of jail at Kirk Michael in the Winter League.

Just one point separated the teams and denied Kirk Michael their first win of the season - but they are getting close and thanks to 97s from Illiam Christian and Perryn Watson, the club will surely break that duck against any teams who turn up expecting easy wins on the night.

 

Kirk Michael             Castletown

97 Perryn Watson     Nigel Christian 99

97 Illiam Christian (J) John Brewis 96

Alex Trafford (J)       Shirley Caley 96

95 Suzanne McKnight Richard Arthur 95

95 Kevin Quinn         Henry Qualtrough 95

480                              481

 

Castletown also had wins in Divisions 2 and 3.

 

Nigel's 24 hours of glory came when he won the  WS Cowin knockout competition at St Johns  by beating  Fergus Coulter of Sulby in a dramatic final round in which regauging of the scores  was needed to separate the men after they tied with 97 each. Fergus could take confidence, though, from scoring a flawless 100 in an earlier round.

 

99s THE ORDER OF THE DAY AS PORT POWER TO VICTORY

 

Ben Kelly, Ryan Forrest and Callum Grant all hit 99s for defending champions Port St Mary on the road at Laxey. Against such consistent scores, the home side, clearly struggling for numbers beyond a first team, could make no impression and were soundly beaten with PSM notching their sixth win out of six in the Winter League campaign.

 

Laxey                                      Port St Mary

97 Stephen Curphey             Ben Kelly 99

97 Gemma Kermode             Ryan Forrest (J) 99

96 Harry Creevy                   Callum Grant (J) 99

96 John Wood                        Kevan Kneale 97

90 Bridget Kneale                 Graham Brown 96

476                                          490

In all there were three divisional wins from champions Port St Mary.

 

SULBY SURGE PAST SANDSIDERS

 

A very strong performance from Sulby at home to IOMSC Sandsiders gave them a thumping win with the highest score of the night coming from the barrel of Mark Boyde.

 

Sulby                          IOMSC Sandsiders

98 Mark Boyde          Bill Jones 95

97 Fergus Coulter     Matthew Roosen 94

97 Mark Cain            Graham Wyatt 93

97 Andy Mitchell       Phil Kneen 88

97 Julian H Teare      Anthony Kneale 87

486                              457

 

Sulby had little difficulty in taking the Division 2 and 3 matches as they were uncontested.

 

Michelle puts shooters on course for success

 

Members of the Isle of Man Shooting Club Development Squad (and this poor writer) spent a weekend on the Sinclair 50m range in St Johns honing their skills and discovering new ones with the help of top-class English coach Michelle Smith.

Assisted by Lara Ward, the athletes (and even I) trained hard and played hard in some pretty cold conditions outdoors which meant seeking some help from duvets to keep warm and get results at times.

The sessions centred around defining and seeking goals as well as discussions on the theory of small bore target rifle shooting - and of course, practice matches and plenty of shoots throughout the day.

In addition, video recordings were made of each of the attendees so they could be analysed, sometimes seriously, sometimes not so seriously in a group session and advice to improve each person handed out.

I learned a lot in the two days of training sessions and Michelle's teaching style made the hard work easier to get the most out of it. Certainly, I picked up a lot of valuable advice that will let me get the best out target shooting here - if I do what I am told, for once!

The aim of the training sessions is not only to improve technique and help participants become better shooters, but also to propel some of them towards a place in the Isle of Man team for the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in Australia.

Michelle, a Commonwealth Games medal winner herself,  will return to the Island for more sessions on January 21-22 next year. Her courses attract great praise and we can't wait for her next instalment.

 

 

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

 

Next week's fixtures include:

Kirk Michael v Sulby

IOMSC Sandsiders v Castletown

Laxey v IOMSC Douglas

Port St Mary have a bye.

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