Page 12 - Spring 2018 Final

Brits 7:Layout 1 02-Apr-18 3:27 PM Page 1

12 Wales had a very comfortable 53 - 24 result over Scotland.
Best for Wales were Richard Palmer, Richard Arran, Chris
Hillier & Debs Matthews with a 19 - 3. For Scotland C. McK-
innon, K. Lawley, D. Hutchinson & S. Drew recorded a 12 - 6
win.
The fourth round saw a repeat of the previous rounds
an England scraped past the Welsh 37 - 33. For England
the 14 - 6 from Anthony Fautley, Simon Willies, Paul
Pomeroy & Nicky Bartlett certainly helped but for the Welsh
Richard Palmer, Richard Arran, Chris Hillier & Debs
Matthews replied with an 11 - 4. Ireland once again made it
hard for the Scots winning 44 - 24 but the Scots made it
IIBA President Mrs Flo McNally harder than before and even drew one game.
presents the Team Trophy
to Ireland’s “A” Team Captain By the penultimate round the Scots were certainly
Esther Forster learning and improving and whilst they lost 48 - 28 against
England, this was mostly due to the 18 - 1 game from Dave
Wiggins, Chris Ferry, Thomas Perris & Stephen Buckett. In the other match Ireland remained un-
defeated with a 42 - 27 win over Wales. The one Welsh rink of Chris Martin, Rhydian Rees, Dafydd
Jones & Liz Jones won 11 - 5 but the Irish took the other three games including a 14 - 5 from Paul
Duff, John Murnaghan, Gordon Stubbs & Jean Carson.
In the final round against England, Ireland easily won the “A” Team Championship and were
undefeated. Once again Ireland won three out of the four rinks by the margin of 48 - 26, including
a 15 - 5 from Norman Rutledge, Malachy Og Trainor, Ian Hobson & Adam Rankin. England’s sole
reply was a 9 - 7 from Anthony Fautley, Simon Willies, Paul Pomeroy & Nicky Bartlett. The other
match ended in a 42 - 25 victory for Wales over Scotland. Best for Wales Richard Palmer, Richard
Arran, Chris Hillier & Debs Matthews with a 12 - 3 game. Proving it was not all one-sided, Scot-
land’s C. McKinnon, K. Lawley, D. Hutchinson & S. Drew won 11 - 7.
Ed - a huge thank you is due to Seamus Kyne for his outstanding help
Ed - a huge thank you is due to Seamus Kyne for his outstanding help
with the Brits Report.
with the Brits Report. For only the second time in 31 years I was unable to get to the Brits,
which was very disappointing. My advance plea to Seamus resulted in most of the published pho-
tos and all the Championship scorecards, which allowed me to put some life into the report.
I know there have been a number of adverse comments about the performance of the Eng-
land Squad, who won none of the eleven titles on offer. The ESMBA (or basically the Registered
players) seem to pay out for four teams, a first team, an “A” team, a Youth Team and a Ladies
team, so the ESMBA Committee are very free with their members money. Personally, I think we
should just support a first team and an under 21’s team in place of the “A” team and any other
teams should finance themselves and stop wasting members money.
In the Autumn magazine I wrote an article on England’s lack of success, as I suspected what
would happen in Ireland. I’m still not sure what the full answer is away from home but people who
understand and know what they would do should be those involved as I do not belive the ESMBA
Committee fully understand what it takes. At home we should play Internationals on fast mats on
hard floors - home advantage and I have been harping on about this for years.
Before anyone says it about me “Yes I am a has been and my time at the top finished a very
long time ago but I still know what it takes”. I have read in the past the crap put on Social media
and I don’t bother with it now. I was asked a few years ago about the standard of England players
compared with the past. My view was that was that today’s very top players are not better than
the older top players but that far more players of today reach the very top standards in comparison
STOP
but at international level we struggle at times and our winning record shows this very clearly. STOP
PRESS - NEXT ISSUE: ENGLAND BECOME TOP DOGS AT THE WORLD CHAMPI-
PRESS - NEXT ISSUE: ENGLAND BECOME TOP DOGS AT THE WORLD CHAMPI-
ONSHIPS IN SWEDEN AND ARE THE ONLY HOME NATION TO WIN A TROPHY (3),
ONSHIPS IN SWEDEN AND ARE THE ONLY HOME NATION TO WIN A TROPHY (3),
WITH BELGIUM AND SWEDEN TAKING THE OTHER TWO. The story and the analy-
WITH BELGIUM AND SWEDEN TAKING THE OTHER TWO. The story and the analy-
sis in the next issue.
sis in the next issue.