England’s female players also took to the pitch in Worthing alongside their male counterparts on the weekend of 5th & 6th April with their contest set up to find our national team for the FIPJP Women’s World Triples Championships.
Scheduled for 9th to 12th October 2025 in the truly magnificent boulodrome at Sin-le-Noble in the Nord département of France, the venue is very accessible to English supporters at around a 1 hour 20 minute drive from Calais via the A26/A21 Autoroutes.
The Women’s SSE attracted only a disappointing four teams, with each team comprising three players. This led to Pétanque England deciding on a round robin format where every team would play each other four times during the weekend.
Saturday
Day 1 saw the triple of Becky Edwins, Ella Slade and Sarah Huntley in the lead having won win five out of their six games, their only reverse being 9-13 in the morning against the team of Lesley Eastlake, Gay Evans and PE’s Youth Lead, Claire Geddes. In fact, at lunch on Saturday, Team Evans was the only unbeaten.
The afternoon session changed things, with Team Evans unable to win any of their three matches, including a 2-13 defeat to the Junior Girls team of Amy Geddes, Jane Geddes and Aimee Rickman. A lunch break can often change things – that’s all about competition management!
Meanwhile fomer England international Sabrina Seville, European Doubles Silver Medallist Alex Spillett and Lori Wellden had a better afternoon, posting two wins out of three to add to their single morning victory although they were on the receiving end of a fanny from Team Huntley.
Sunday
Team Huntley’s two win cushion at the start of the second day looked pretty formidable, but, Team Seville really put the pressure on as they gave Team Huntley a payback fanny. The morning did not get any better as the Junior Girls inflicted an excellent 13-5 defeat on the overnight leaders.
Team Seville had three out of three wins in their morning matches, meaning that they were now level pegging as the competition entered its final afternoon session.
Both Team Huntley and Team Seville then won their next two afternoon matches without too much trouble, setting up a final match where the winner would get the England call-up. Each on eight wins out of 11, the points difference, although in Team Huntley’s favour, would not be required to split the teams; it was a winner takes all showdown.
Although Team Seville would have gone into the contest full of confidence having the better perfomance on the day and handing out the earlier fanny, it was Team Huntley who dug deep and found something extra to end up convincing winners 13-2.
A bit of a rollercoaster ride, but Team Huntley got there in the end, meaning that Sarah and Becky will be again at the World Championships and 18-year old Ella will get her first international representation at senior level. Ella is no stranger to international level pétanque, having won Silver at European Youth level and first thrown a boule aged just 9.
World level competition in any age, gender or format is extremely tough and the team will look to improve on the last Women’s World Championships in Thailand in 2023, where England were ranked 27th out of 43 following the five-round Swiss Qualification and finished as defeated Quarter Finalists in the secondary Nations Cup tournament, losing to a strong Danish team 8-13.
The remaining issue is the selection of the fourth player which is expected to be made from the runner-up team and will be decided by Women’s Coach, Jeremy Huntley who was just edged out himself in the Men’s SSE.
As with the Men’s tournament the runners-up came very close and there’s a good case for PE to reward the team with an suitable international playing opportunity, particularly the two players that are unsuccessful in the selection decision.
The low entry of players in the Women’s SSE is the cause of some concern and unlike the men’s process, there were some obvious recent England internationals and other players who competed previously who were not present. Regardless of the entry, the process has still resulted in England having a strong and competitive team for the tournament later this year and there is every reason to believe that they can improve on Thailand 2023.
P365 is planning to bring *live and exclusive* coverage of our team from Sin-le-Noble in October. Look out for more information nearer the time!
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