By John Thomson
The start of Autumn heralds in the start of the Autumn croquet season.
This year Lilydale has three teams playing in the Shield competition, one team in Level Play Section one, this is the first time Lilydale has had a team in this section, another team in Level Play Section two and a team in the Handicap competition.
This means Lilydale is represented across all three of the Autumn Shield competitions.
The first game to start the season was held last Monday 27 February at Lilydale. The game was Level Play Section two and played against Sandringham. Lilydale’s section two team has a slightly different look this season with the loss of Glenn Crooke and Murray Howlett who make up the section one team. The team for section two this season will be, Alan Jones and Craig McCracken, who were part of the team last season with two new inclusions of Ron Green and John Thomson.
Lilydale and Sandringham have built up quite a rivalry over the last few seasons with some very close games, and this one shaped up to be no different.
The first game was the doubles and Lilydale’s pairing of Alan Jones and Craig McCracken had a real struggle against the Sandringham pair with the game going hoop for hoop. After 12 hoops it was six hoops all so it was off to the 13th hoop to find a winner, after quite a tussle for this hoop Sandringham eventually won the hoop with an excellent hoop running shot from the boundary. The final score for this game was Sandringham 7 hoops to Lilydale 6 hoops.
The next four games are all singles games.
The first game saw Craig McCracken play. Craig was obviously out to make amends for having lost the doubles and played an excellent game winning 7 hoops to Sandringham 2 hoops
The second game saw John Thomson in his first game of shield for a few seasons. John was able to get a break early and then hold on to his lead, winning 7 hoops to 3 hoops.
At lunch, Lilydale were 2 games 20 hoops to Sandringham 1 game 12 hoops.
After lunch with 2 singles games to play and only 1 game and 8 hoops between both teams it was still too close to call.
The first of the singles saw a very determined Sandringham come out and play an excellent game and won 7 hoops to Lilydale’s 4 hoops.
This put both teams on 2 games apiece only separated by 5 hoops, so it was all down to the last game to determine the winner.
In this game John Thomson was able to build a bit of pressure early which drew a couple of errors from the Sandringham player and Lilydale won the game 7 hoops to Sandringham 2 hoops.
The final scores at the end of the day was, Lilydale 3 games 31 hoops to Sandringham 2 games 21 hoops.
Another close game between these two teams. Although both teams are very competitive the games are always played in good spirits.
It is always good to get the first win under your belt, next Monday Lilydale is at home again and takes on Woodash, a combined side of Ringwood and Monash. This could be another very close game.
