President’s Report – In Transit
- Singapore
Well here we are
into the winter and I know that
petanque in many areas is as
busy as ever. That’s one of the
great things about our sport -
we seem to be happy to play all
year round.
It is still very
busy on the international scene,
we have just completed a Trans
Tasman victory over the
Australians and my
congratulations to manager
Murray Porter and the team for
bringing the Trans Tasman trophy
to New Zealand.
As I write this
the World Championships are not
far away and I would like to
thank everyone who has helped to
get the team to Geneva. I am
sure we will do you all proud
again. It is great that so many
people have got behind the team,
who have been practising in
preparation for the tournament
and are looking forward to the
challenge very much.
This year an
additional player was selected
to accompany Georgio, Seti &
Andrew to the World
Championships. The team put an
application to the PNZ Committee
for Allan Fletcher to go as
reserve player (most other teams
competing have a reserve). As
funds were available in Auckland
to include Allan, it was decided
he should make the trip.
Trevor and Sue
Neilson left New Zealand in June
for an extensive tour of Europe
and will join the team in Geneva
in July.
Since the last
magazine we have sent 3 people
to a coaching seminar in
Melbourne and Ron, Clive and
Bernadette are keen to get
things going on the coaching
front. More information will be
forthcoming soon on coaching.
Graeme Morris –
President
Trans Tasman Challenge 2003
Arms held high,
grins (relief) all round, “we’ve
done it!” exalts Terry Lambert
as he congratulates Aussie
Samuel, Pam Jenkins & Michael
Rocks who had just won the
deciding game to give NZ the
overall victory over Australia.
A huge team effort, including
some animated cheer leading from
Terry saw NZ turn around a 13 -
23 points first day result to
achieve a 27 - 9 tally on Day 2,
giving a final result NZ 40 -
AUS 32.
There were many
theories bantered around the
Aussie camp as to how we managed
to overcome the first days
deficit and come out the victor,
but the key ingredient that they
had overlooked was Terry’s red
socks. He was wearing the same
pair (we assume they had been
washed) as in Santiago when
helping Team NZ win the Americas
Cup in 1995. He actually had his
photo taken with the Americas
Cup so what could be more
appropriate than one with the
Trans Tasman Trophy.
On the Friday
night before the competition
commenced we were invited to a
get together with the Australian
contingent at the clubrooms.
Andre Deramond, Petanque
Australia’s president welcomed
us and he also used the occasion
to present the Aussie team their
team shirts.
The Australian
team consisted of players from
the Melbourne Petanque Club, the
majority having French heritage,
who had formed a 2 women, 4 men
team and won their way through
two qualifying events to gain
the right to be the National
team for the Trans Tasman
Series.
Included in the
team were Pierre Bomouito and 15
year old Ryma Teibah who were
regarded respectively as
Australia’s top male and female
exponents (Australia do not have
National Singles & Doubles
Championships).
Petanque
Australia had arranged for the
NZ team to stay at ‘Annies Bed &
Breakfast’ in St Kilda. This was
an excellent choice with Ann
Briese such a wonderful host,
including providing excellent
breakfasts and generally going
out of her way for us.
Day 1 had an
interesting start to it with us
arriving at the Middle Park
terrains an hour before the
proposed start time of 9.00am to
find that the gates were still
locked, so team warm up
exercises included scaling the
boundary fence. The playing
surface was made up of a thin
layer of small pebbles on a
solid base, which was an
unfamiliar surface for most of
the team. 9.30am saw the opening
rounds of the competition with
singles and doubles first on the
agenda.
Despite winning
some of the early games, the day
slipped away for NZ and so we
ended the day behind the eight
ball, but not out. Not all was
lost on Day 1 as in the
afternoon because Terry needed a
breather from his hectic Team
Support role, I joined him in a
best of three challenge against
Andre Deramond and Bernie
Bomouito (Australian Team
reserve). The stakes were high,
losers shout a round, so with
this as Terry’s focus there was
no holding us back. Final score
NZ 2- AUS 1.
Aside from the
Trans Tasman showdown, Middle
Park on the Sunday was also
where the Victoria State Singles
Championships were to be held.
What was to unfold suggested
shades of the recently released
movie ‘Crackerjack’, which
incidentally was modelled on the
goings on of the Melbourne
Bowling Clubs. Two members of
the Victoria tournament
committee had a meeting between
each other and decided that
because it was ‘Mothers Day’ on
Sunday, despite the Singles
having been promoted on the
Petanque Calendar for nine
months, they duly cancelled the
Championship. As you could
imagine there were a few unhappy
faces, particularly the ones who
had travelled 300kms.
Day 2 and crunch
time arrives. With a 10 point
deficit to make up, the 9 games
of doubles worth 18pts were to
be played in the morning and in
the afternoon, 6 x triples worth
18pts.The team were determined
to turn the first day result
around to their favour and so
the fight back began.
Mid-afternoon and
the doubles were completed, we
had won 6 and lost 3 so were now
4 points behind the Australians
with 6 games of triples to play.
Team talk - win 4 of the 6
remaining games and we will
claim the trophy, noting that
Australia only needed to win 3.
Two more games
were played with Aussie, Pam,
and Michael winning 13 - 2 and
looking as though they should
win their next two games. Geoff,
Denise, Sharon were not so
fortunate going down 5 - 13.
A regroup and
change of strategy and back into
the fray for Geoff, Denise,
Sharon. Making a great start
they went 4 - 0 up after two
ends which set the foundation
for two hard fought wins 13 - 7,
13 - 12. Aussie, Pam, Michael
won their next two games 13 - 2,
13 - 2.
It was an
exciting way to finish the
competition with the spectators
treated to some intense and
highly skilled petanque as NZ
came home with the goods winning
5 of the 6 games.
Murray Porter -
Team Manager
South Island Championships
South Island
Doubles
Yahooey it’s
Queens Birthday weekend and we
all know what that means. No not
just any ordinary holiday
weekend - its time to travel to
Dunedin for the South Island
Doubles and Club Winter
Challenge Tournaments.
Flushed with
enthusiasm the stirling
contingent from Canterbury
boarded their mini bus and
headed on their annual trek to
the far south. A welcome break
at Timaru for lunch was followed
by a few fun games with the
members of Timaru Town & Country
Club.
On to Dunedin and
after booking in to the Dunedin
Motor Camp the by now hungry
travellers headed for a meal at
‘Wobblies’ and after some
players made their fortunes on
the pokies, bed was an
attractive next stop.
Saturday dawned
in brilliant sunshine - this is
well worth mentioning as the
majority of our Dunedin trips
have occurred in cold wet and
freezing conditions. Players
were impressed by the
landscaping changes at Caversham
Club and appreciated the new
paving around the terrain
proximities.
The Tournament
commenced and continued during
that day and the following
Sunday. Competition was intense
and finally the four semi
finalists faced each other in a
classic Christchurch v Dunedin
‘showdown’.
Pat & Reed
Jamieson played Anne Sinclair &
Branko Cvetjan who tenaciously
recovered from a 12 - 6 deficit
to win at 13 - 12.
Ivan Hansen & Art
Vernon defeated Mark Choveaux &
Warren McConnell 13 - 5. So yet
another Christchurch v Dunedin
finals match was in store.
The finals match,
again played in (almost) warm
sunshine was highlighted by
steady pointing from Ivan Hansen
and very accurate shooting from
Art Vernon. Anne & Branko could
not get sufficient boules close
to the cochonnet to pressure the
Christchurch pair and eventually
lvan & Art prevailed and won 13
- 7.
A fun social
evening followed with a potluck
dinner and a few lemonades.
Winter Challenge
Now this is more
like the weather we are used to
- cold and rainy but this failed
to dampen the spirits of the
Club teams in any way. They
decided to ignore the weather
and played their hearts out for
their Clubs knowing each game
and point won could be crucial.
The concept has
the top seeded team from each
Club playing their equivalents
from the other Clubs. Each Club
team consists of four doubles
teams and if a Club doesn’t have
sufficient players then they are
able to co-opt players from
other Clubs to make up their
numbers.
As always
friendly rivalry was to the fore
and on this occasion
Christchurch Club was the
eventual winner on 22 points
with Caversham and Waikouaiti
Clubs jointly second. So the
much coveted Winter Challenge
Championship Trophy wended its
way home with the minibus and
its by now tired happy
contingent leaving our deep
southern friends plotting
revenge in 2004.
Diane Findlay –
Christchurch
Masterton United Travel Mid
Winter Madness Doubles
If you like your
petanque playing on a well
manicured terrain, along with
all the clubhouse comforts, them
Masterton Petanque Club’s mid
winter madness doubles tourney -
may not be for you.
If however you
want to really hone your playing
skills in a fun filled
atmosphere with 70’s music
accompanying your brazier warmed
boules along with some flames
and smokes, then it no wonder
the ‘Mid Winter Madness’
continues to be a yearly get-
together fun event.
The pistes are in
fact bare but well raked, clean
lime covered mother earth,
inside the Clareville, A & P’s
stockyard. This year ‘Ol’ Man
Winter’ stayed away, with the
two fine days of Queen’s
birthday holiday weekend making
this unique event a wonderfully
warm Wairarapa welcome, to this
novice.
Sponsored by
Masterton United Travel, and
husband and wife team of the
company’s petanque players
Rochelle and Graeme Bumard, the
42 players each came up with
rather rare and novel names for
their teams like ‘Boule Dogs’,
‘Naughty Nana’s’ and some
amended names such as ‘Crouching
Tiger, Shooting Dragons’, versus
‘Dragon Slayers’ and two Tony’s
Double Dragons’.
Clubs
representations or affiliations
were not important in this non
PNZ representative event, but
rules still applied, as I found
out rather quickly.
Winners of the
trophy were the two ‘Club Med (fragapani
flowered capes) Girls’ team, of
Margret Fleck and Danila
Carducci, with their husbands
team of Miles Cowper and Oskar
de Jong falling to the women.
The Plate went to
the two Tony’s ‘Double Dragons’
and the Bowl to Peter van
Heusden and Tony Millar’s ‘Ball
Chuckers!’
Organiser Ralph
Priddle said his club was
pleased with the ever increasing
popularity of the Mid Winter
Madness attendance and support
of North Island clubs even
Puturaru and three Auckland
‘Jafas’ (just another fabulous
Aucklander?)
A word of advice
petanque is a social game that
can be played competitively too!
The beauty of being in the M W
Madness is that you can see the
theory of this principle in
sheer practise and really enjoy
the experience.
Peter Boys, Petanque Mt Albert
Petanque New Zealand News
Summary of
Committee meeting 12 & 13 April
2003
This was Terry
Holts last meeting as a
Committee member; he is going to
devote more time to the
development of petanque in the
Southern region. His replacement
until the next AGM will be Mark
Stewart.
The Committee
thanked Terry for his
contribution to the Committee
and Petanque NZ over the past
three years.
-
Regional
Websites
It was agreed
that PNZ should offer the
regions a link to the PNZ
site. Offer to be made
direct to Wellington and
Auckland Associations
(Christchurch already has
one), and put in the
magazine so that anyone with
a website has the
opportunity to link,
provided they agree to PNZ
conditions.
-
Coaching
Bernadette
Lawson gave a rundown on the
seminar in Australia that
she, Ron Sandilands and
Clive Bartleet attended on
behalf of Petanque NZ. The
course covered practical
coaching, theory, game
strategy, tactics, how to
evaluate player skills and
progress.
It was
decided to set up a series
of regional coaching
seminars. This will
hopefully motivate people to
become more involved in
coaching and willing to be
designated club coaches. Ron
had already held a seminar
in Auckland, so seminars
will be organised for
Central/Bay of Plenty area,
Hawkes Bay,
Wellington
and Christchurch. Terry
already has one scheduled
for the Southern region,
which can now incorporate
material from Australia.
The Coaching
manual is nearly ready for
distribution, once
Australian material is
incorporated. Training
exercises and photos are to
be put on the website, in a
‘Training’ section.
-
Standard of
terrains for national
tournament venues
In response
to concerns raised by some
members in respect of the
terrain at the Triples
Championship, the Committee
discussed whether a policy
on the standard of terrains
was required.
While it was
agreed that there should be
some standard, there are
difficulties of how to
specify the required
standard for example how/who
defines ‘reasonable’. In the
end we agreed that there
should be no excessive
variation between the
playing conditions of
different pistes, to the
extent that it could confer
an unfair advantage on the
team winning the toss.
On this
basis, future tournament
applications will be
approved subject to an
inspection of the terrain.
This inspection is to be
done 6 months out, and again
2 weeks before the
tournament. Also, pistes
will be preallocated, i.e.
not chosen by the players on
the day.
-
World Champs
arrangements
An update on
fund raising was given.
Resolutions were passed to
enable applications to be
made to various Community
Trusts. The team had
requested that a 4th player
be allowed to go, to cover
for sickness/injury and to
be able to take advantage of
the new substitution rule
This was agreed, subject to
necessary funds being raised
by the team.
-
Allocation of
2004 national tournaments
Several
applications had been
received for the Doubles and
Triples, and one application
for the Singles, from
Christchurch.
The
allocation was agreed as:
Triples -
Putaruru, 3rd/4th April 2004
(weekend before Easter)
Doubles -
Kapiti, 23rd/24th October
(Labour Weekend)
Singles -
Christchurch, 4th/5th
September.
-
Strategic
Plan
The Committee
discussed the draft
Strategic Plan prepared
following the February
Auckland workshop. Some
minor amendments were made
to the wording, and action
plans formulated for the
goals. Progress against the
Plan will be reviewed at
every Committee meeting. The
Secretary is to make
amendments to the plan,
which will then be published
and distributed to Clubs.
-
Constitution
A Special AGM
will be held in conjunction
with the National Singles at
Bay View in August, to adopt
the new Constitution.
-
SPARC funding
We will need
to change PNZ’s status to a
‘participation’ sport in
order to apply for project
funding as from next year.
To do this we need the new
Constitution and Strategic
Plan. The priority projects
we will be applying for
funding for are:
-
Coaching
implementation of new
coaching structure,
coaching seminars and
course participation
-
Participation public
events, open days ($ for
advertising, brochures,
equipment)
-
Publicity
- $ to pay for
volunteers expenses,
and/or look at paid
employment; hire
consultant.
-
National
tournaments seeding and
formatting
Brian
explained the formatting and
seeding system used for
national tournaments, and
why the Triples tournament
turned out the way it did
(basically because a number
of the top seeded teams did
not perform to the expected
level). Brian is the
Convener of the formatting
subcommittee, and Steve
Thwaites, Murray Porter and
Allan Fletcher are the other
members. The subcommittee is
to ensure that the
Tournament Organiser, PNZ
Liaison person, and
Tournament Umpire are
advised of the tournament
format.
-
Requirements
of officials
Terry tabled
a paper on the
requirements/responsibilities
of petanque officials during
tournaments umpires,
organisers, players, PNZ
Committee. This will form
the basis of PNZ policy on
this issue, and be available
to tournament organisers.
-
PNZ 10th
Anniversary observation
A
sub-Committee is to be set
up, chaired by Trevor
Neilson, to formulate ideas
to celebrate anniversary eg
mementos, events. A National
Petanque Week is to be part
of this.
-
Women’s World
Champs
Agreed that
we’d like to send a team to
the next Women’s World
Champs if possible. Graeme
Morris is to obtain
tournament details when,
where, team composition
requirements etc. We need to
start planning now for team
selection, funding and
management.
-
NZ Junior
Squad for World Champs
A sub
committee (of Kiwi Sport
coordinators) is to be set
up for identifying junior
talent, selecting and
coaching a junior
development squad, with the
aim of sending a team to the
world champs in 2006. Will
need to be looking at
current 11 - 12 year olds,
as the championships are for
under 16s.
-
FIPJP
The FIPJP has
indicated that support is
available for coaching. It
was agreed that we should
investigate the possibility
of bringing an international
coach/trainer to New Zealand
using FIPJP support. The
Committee agreed to look at
the possibility of raising
funds to send a delegate to
two meetings of the FIPJP
per year, to further the
push to develop petanque
globally.
A shift
towards regional petanque
groupings in particular has
the potential to be of
benefit to New Zealand (for
example Asia- Pacific
championships).
-
The next
Committee meeting will be
9th/10th August; please send
any items you would like
Committee to discuss to the
Secretary.
Barbara
Whittington - Secretary |
