Robin Brown won the COWhorn

[<<] [>>] by Roger Wood at Compton
5th July (AC)

Luckily the rain forecast for Saturday arrived overnight on Friday and had petered out before play began leaving the rest of the weekend dry and increasingly warm. Three times former winner Dave Kibble returned after a 5-year absence; Jonathan Smith from Ryde and southern hemisphere visitors Nelson Morrow and David Wise were welcome newcomers.

In the first round of the knockout Robert Fulford made a signature start with a sextuple peel against Tudor Jenkins and Roger Tribe completed the first of his pair of +1 wins. All four seeds (see results below) won through to the semi-finals: Gabrielle Higgins had a straight games win against Robert, 26tp in the first, and another fine triple in the second after Robert had completed 5 peels of his sextuple but came to grief at rover; and in Robin Brown's win over David Maugham he peeled and pegged out David's 3-back ball in the first game and his 4-back ball in the second to produce two fascinating tactical finishes - all completed by close of play on Saturday.

The final started at 11:00 on Sunday and went to three games. In the first Robin took red to 4-back but, before making any peels, rushed partner into the jaws of hoop 3 on his way to hoop 5 and could not continue; Gabrielle went on to win without quite managing to make any peels. Thereafter the play was all Robin's: his second game's triple finished with a combination pegout and the third was won without reply.

The consolation event saw Dave Kibble add to his previous tally of 3 COWbell wins - having fallen to David Maugham in the second round of the knockout, he won all his remaining games, well ahead of the pursuing pack. Robert Fulford's opening sextuple more or less settled the peeling prize by 10:30 on Saturday morning: others had several triples but not enough.

Knockout for the COWhorn