Dave McGrath has written his usual entertaining and witty summary of the first 7 days of the tournament and sets the scene in advance of the finals on Saturday 12th August.
Click the title to read the review.

Three Irish-based players will be representing Ireland in the World Association Croquet Championships which are being held in London from 15 to 23 July. Sandy Greig and Simon Williams are members at Carrickmines and Andrew Johnston plays at Newcastle (Co. Wicklow).

The photo shows Sandy, Simon and Andrew in their Irish kit. We wish them all the best in the Championships.

The SLOC is usually held in late July, designed to be a warm-up event for the Irish Championships. This year, however, because the World AC Championship will be held in England in mid-July, it was decided to move the event forward.
This year’s visitors included Dave Maugham (-2.5) and his wife, Alison (-0.5), as well as Sandy Greig from Carrickmines. The average handicap of the 8 entrants was -0.8, which was expected to lead to fast games. This expectation was fulfilled, as not even the heavy rain on Saturday morning could reduce the quality of play.

Rushbrooke was a wonderful and welcoming host club for the return match between the CAI and the SCA women players. The first match took place last year at Balgreen in Edinburgh which was won fairly easily by the Irish. It was always going to be a challenge for the Scots to overcome the more experienced Irish players and it looked on the first day as if they would be overwhelmed – Ireland won the 32 games played by 27-5. The Scots rallied significantly on the second day which was again won by the Irish 18-14.

Ireland win GC Home Internationals 2023
The eighth Home International Championship was hosted by the CAI at Carrickmines last weekend. England have won all previous tournaments, but they did not win this one!

This new event was played at Carrickmines on the 27th and 28th of May. Out of 31 entrants, 3 scratched before play began. Group play with 4 games for everybody was followed by a seeded play-off and a plate event for losers. To make sure of no delays, a shortened third game was the rule for the best-of-three matches. The management cannot have been too bad as there was very little squawking from the competitors.

There is still time for your entry for the Dublin Open AC Championships. Entries close on 26th May

Easiest way to enter is to use the online form at

https://forms.gle/Gy1aEGNBkPDCFZ968

Full details at

https://croquetireland.com/cai/docs/ChampionshipofCoDublin2023.pdf

CAI 10 - SCA 6

   This year's match between Ireland and Scotland was played at Carrickmines last weekend, with victory going to the hosts in the latter stages. The Scots fielded a team of four, so the CAI team was Nathaniel Healy, Alan Looney, Gerard Osborne Burke and Geraldine O'Rourke (the latter as a late replacement for the injured Frank Martin) .

Ireland took the lead on Saturday morning by winning both doubles games but from then until Sunday afternoon each session was divided evenly, so we were leading 6 - 4 on Saturday evening.

Carrickmines C&LTC announce the inauguration of a new Open Golf Croquet tournament to compete for the Harrison Cup. It will be played on 27th & 28th May 2023.

See full details here.  NB. payment details changed on 2nd May.

The Gymnastic Cup Open AC tournament will be held at Carrickmines on 30th April and 1st May and is open to all. Entries by 25th April.

Full invitation and details, click here.