Dublin University Open Croquet tournament
8th & 9th of April 2006
This year saw the reintroduction of the Dublin University Open Tournament to the C.A.I. calendar. A mixed field of players was obtained that boasted students and staff of the college as well as many members of the current Irish Squad.
The committee members of the D.U. Croquet club secured the usage of an extra two Croquet lawns upon the University Cricket lawn enabling all the games to proceed simultaneously. The undulations and quirks of the lawns proved to throw a few of the more experienced players from time to time, thus providing a home advantage of sorts for the Trinity students.
Saturday Play
The 16 entrants were divided up into 4 blocks of four with the top two progressing to Sunday’s knockout event. The bottom two would go on to compete in the B knockout event.
Saturday brought about some notable results. With Robert Barklie performing well to beat Ronan McInerney and Andrew Johnston emerging from a close tie with Mark McInerney.
Also, a special mention for Daniel Kelleher, who, despite being new to tournament croquet, managed to beat Leo Dungan and to push University Captain Enda Coyle all the way in what was the closest game of the day.
Sunday Play
With the 16 entrants now whittled down to the final 8 competitors, Sundays play would prove to provide some high quality games. The quarterfinal games saw, Robert Barklie, Ronan McInereny, Mark McInereny and Andrew Johnston emerge from their respective ties with Evan Newell, Leo Dungan, Jane Shorten and Simon Williams.
The draw for the Semi-final saw Andrew Johnston pitted against Robert Barklie and Ronan McInereny against his brother Mark. Both games provided chances for each player to win but Andrew and Mark eventually won out to face each other for the second time that weekend.
The Final proved to be a more clinical affair than many of the matches that preceded it. Having hit first, Andrew offered up few chances for Mark to get in to the game and he ended up winning (+26).
Andrew became the first person to get his name on the new trophy and having had a particularly hard draw he proved to be a worthy winner.
The B event saw Conor Broderick and Enda Coyle emerge from their respective semi-final games with Dan Kelleher and Alan Donagher to contest the Final. With both players somewhat off the boil it proved to be a patchy game which eventually saw Conor win (+18).
So congratulations again to Andrew on winning. A special mention should be given to both the lawns and the weather for the parts they played in making the weekend that bit more unpredictable. My personal highlight had to be watching the hailstones bounce a foot into the air as they covered the lawns during the block play.
On behalf of the Committee here at Dublin University, we hoped you enjoyed the weekend and that it serves both to be the first of many more tournaments to come and to start the season off on a casual but confident foot.
Conor Broderick