League season starts with a draw

2008 Suffolk Coastal Petanque League - Deben Division
Sunday 20th April at home versus Hollesley Shepherd & Dog

Team: Simon Fletcher, Lewis Fletcher, Roger Baxter, Richard Newman

The team started the new league season Sunday morning with a home match against Hollesley Shepherd & Dog, and whilst the mist cleared over the duration of the mornings match, to reveal clear blue skies and the welcome appearance of the sun, Aldeburgh put in a good showing in their opening league fixture.

With unavailability keeping Jimmy & Tina Robinson out of the team, vice captain Simon paired himself with Lewis whilst Roger and Richard formed the other opening pair. In the early stages of Simons game, Aldeburgh found themselves 7-1 down after 5 ends but with Simon taking over the pointing from Lewis saw the Aldeburgh pair pull it around to finish with a 13-8 win to put Aldeburgh 1-0 up in the match.
In the other game Roger & Richard had stormed to a 12-3 lead but then the Hollesley pair staged an amazing comeback to sneak the vital point to win 13-12 and make the match score 1-1 overall at that stage.

Under League rules no pair can be paired up again so this time Simon combined with Roger whilst Richard and Lewis formed the other double. Good pointing by Roger gave Aldeburgh the upper hand for most of the game and finally secured a 13-4 win, making it 2-1 to Aldeburgh and therefore the final game was to be the decider between drawing or winning.

The Hollesley captain was proving to be a difficult opponent and near the end of the game the visitors lead 12-9, then Aldeburgh pulled 2 back to make it 11-12. Everything rested probably on the next end and whilst Aldeburgh had some decent boules close, Hollesley just had one better and resulted in a 13-11 victory for the Shepherd & Dog.

So overall a 2-2 draw which isnt a bad result but Aldeburgh scored 49 points out of the possible maximum of 52, so three more points would have seen a 4-0 home win rather than honours even.

Great credit must be given to Hollesley who hadnt played anywhere else other than their own car park but despite them not knowing what to expect, they put up a terrific fight in their first match and deserved the draw on the day.

Next match Sunday May 4th at home to Suivre Les Boule Playford