By John Thomson
Lilydale made the journey down Eastlink to take on Mornington on Monday 26 September for the Level Play competition.
The weather forecast was not looking good and they were expecting a strong cold wind off the bay, but this did not eventuate and the weather was perfect for croquet.
The day’s play started with the doubles match which was hard fought with Lilydale’s pairing of Craig McCracken and Alan Jones getting over the line 7 hoops to 5 hoops.
The next two games were singles games.
The first one saw Lilydale’s team captain, Glenn Crook win in another close game 7 hoops to 5 hoops.
The next singles went right down to the wire with Mornington winning this game 7 hoops to 6 hoops.
So, at the lunch break it was Lilydale 2 games 20 hoops to Mornington 1 game 17 hoops.
With the afternoon session to play it was anybody’s day.
After lunch it was the reverse singles. Alan Jones for Lilydale was first up and he had quite a comfortable win, winning 7 hoops to 3 hoops.
Next to play for Lilydale was Glenn Crook, this game was extremely tight all the way through, but in the end, Glenn was lucky enough to win the last hoop, the score being 7 hoops to 6 hoops.
Although the final scores show Lilydale winning the day, 3 games 34 hoops to Mornington 1 game 26 hoops, the individual games were a lot closer than the final score indicates.
On Thursday 29 September Lilydale was away against Ivanhoe in the Handicap competition.
These two teams have always played some close hard, fought games and it looked as if this was not going to be any different.
First up was a singles game where both players were playing a very tactical game. The game went to the 13th and last hoop, with Lilydale winning 7 hoops to 6 hoops.
Next game was a doubles game which saw Ivanhoe get on top early and come away with a comfortable 7 hoops to 4 hoops win.
Lilydale had Alan Jones playing in the next singles game, and Alan, continuing on with his good singles form during the season had a very good win, winning 7 hoops to 2 hoops.
The next doubles game was an epic struggle between the two teams, with Lilydale just hanging on to win the 13th and last hoop, 7 hoops to 6 hoops.
The next game was Lilydale’s Craig McCracken playing singles. Again, this was an extremely tight game and went right down to the 13th hoop, which saw the Ivanhoe player execute a very good jump shot to win the game 7 hoops to 6 hoops.
The last game of the day was a doubles game which saw Lilydale’s pairing of Alan Jones and Michael Crawley, Lilydale’s newest team member, up against Ivanhoe’s team. Ivanhoe got off to a good start and Lilydale tried to make up ground but Ivanhoe kept up the pressure and won the game 7 hoops to 3 hoops.
This proved to be another epic struggle between these two teams with Ivanhoe winning the day 3 games 35 hoops to Lilydale 3 games 34 hoops. It doesn’t get any closer than that, and it just shows how much every hoop counts.
This is Lilydale’s first loss in this Shield competition so far this season, so they will be looking to bounce back next week when they play MCC Elsternwick.
