JERSEY OPEN 2019

Plate winners and runner ups

Mark Nicol & Chris Romeril

THE JERSEY PETANQUE CLUB OPEN DOUBLES 2019
SATURDAY 4th May & SUNDAY 5th May

Saturday, May 4th, 2019
Saturday started with an hour of rain and a stiff North Easterly wind which wasn't particularly pleasant to play in. However, the sun came out for the whole of the remainder of the weekend which warmed things up considerably.

There were 74 teams competing from the UK, France, Jersey and Guernsey.

Colin Smith from Liverpool is a regular visitor to Jersey for the JPC Open Doubles and is usually partnered by Pat Rowlands from Doncaster, but this time he lined up with our own Matt Pinel - along with 73 other pairs, in what’s believed to be a record-breaking entry for the competition.
It started well for Smith and Pinel. In the qualifying rounds they had six straight wins and amassed a points difference of +62. Then they faced Geoffroy Buffetrille and Laurent Pellaton in the semi-final, which they won 13-6. In the other semi were Mark Nicol and Chris Romeril, winners of the competition for the last two years and hoping to achieve a remarkable hat-trick. They had a comfortable 13-1 against an Anglo- French pairing of Liz Mann from Lincoln and Marcel Gueno from Coutances. But this year they experienced defeat in the final losing to Smith and Pinel13-2, although they did have the consolation of picking up the cup for the best Channel Island team.

Meanwhile in the Plate competition there was another trophy for the Pinel family, this time Matt’s Dad, Keith, in a Little and Large partnership with Graham Follain. They beat the Guernsey pairing of Giles Cleal and Dave Bartram 13-9.

Consolage 1 went to a Carrefour pairing of Paul Waters and Christine Eccles. They beat a duo from Swindon, Nigel Law and Joe Paris, 13-5.

No Jersey pairs made it through to the semi-finals in Consolage 2. The winners of the trophy were a team from Edinburgh, Paul Gillam and Carol Cheam, who defeated Bill Weller and Colin Simons from Kent13-10.

Mike Ritzema and Brian Harris were awarded the trophy for being the best performing JPC pairing

Many of today’s competitors will be in the hunt for more trophies tomorrow in the Carrefour Pétanque Club Open Triples event for which 36 teams have entered.

Giles Cleal & Dave Bartram

Bill Weller & Colin Symons

Liz Mann, Marcel Gueno & Geffroy Buffetrille, Laurent Pellaton

Jane Bowden, Cullum Paterson, Bev & Nevil Stevenson

Consolage 2

What an up and down three days of competitive pétanque for 47-year-old English international player Colin Smith on the big Bank Holiday weekend double bill. Partnered with Jerseyman Matt Pinel they won the Jersey Pétanque Club Open Doubles which had attracted a record-breaking 148 competitors from France, Guernsey, Scotland, England and Wales as well as local players.

Then Smith from Liverpool, playing with his 16-year-old son Jacob, and Patricia Rowlands from Heckmondwyke, reached the final of the Carrefour Pétanque Club Open Triples which had also broken its participation record, with more than a hundred players taking part, including many who’d played in the event at Les Quennevais.

The match was tied at eleven-all with Smith’s final ball of the following end nestling next to the target ball, the coche, only for Islander, Geoffroy Buffetrille, to winkle it out, leaving it two metres from the rest of the boules, giving his side two simple long shots to claim victory. Playing with Joy Hart and Steve Foster it meant there were three new names to be inscribed on the trophy.

It was the first time the English trio had tasted defeat after emerging from the qualifying rounds as the only unbeaten side. In the semi-final they beat Jerseymen Toby Northern and Matt Ryan plus Brendan Ogier from Guernsey 13-10.

The other semi saw a remarkable 13-0 whitewash by the eventual winners of the competition against the trio of Matt Pinel, Mark Nicol and Rich Nevitt.

Nigel Law & Joe Paris

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