48 teams and 161 players descended on Western Park in Leicester on Sunday 18th May to stake their claim for inclusion in England’s 2025 Home Nations Squad.
Pétanque England’s events guru John Edmondson plumped for a five-round Swiss System format to find the eight teams who will travel to Wales in August, determined to return the Home Nations Trophy to England after its first ever loss in Jersey last year.
The volunteer team that set up the venue, ran the competition and provided sustenance from the club’s quaint club house were an absolute credit to the sport, giving the day an almost carnival atmosphere. National Umpire Gareth Sullivan had his work cut out officiating 24 games at once on his own.
But the star of the show was the pitches – rarely do you find a venue with such varied and challenging surfaces demanding that players use their very best pointing and shooting skills. Every pitch felt different in terms of surface and contour and those that adapted, prospered.
Not everyone’s cup of tea, but difficult pitches like these are the only way to improve techniques like lob pointing and boule to boule shooting, ultimately raising individual players’ ability.
Swiss System anoraks worked out before the play started that qualification would hinge on not losing more than one match and even then, four wins might not be enough to make the Top 8. It would all come down to a tie break which with the Swiss System is based on comparing the respective strengths of an individual team’s opponents by adding up their wins on the day and calculating a Buccholz score or BhN.
Round 1 was randomly drawn and as the three rounds progressed from that, the pairings would be based on teams on the same number of wins facing each other. Only in the fifth and final round would this not apply, with limited teams facing a ‘crossover’.
The Swiss System would end up pitching a team on four wins against a team on three wins and a team on three wins against a team on two wins in that concluding showdown round.
The business end of the competition
As it came to the crunch final round, there were three undefeated teams on four wins and twelve on three wins. Only these teams had a chance of qualifying.
The draw threw out the following matches and results.
In the match between the two undefeated teams, Andrew Winter/Kam Modha/Roy Damodar lost 2-13 to Marc Franco-Llado/Jason White/Kai Sheffield. Team Franco-Llado will play as England 1.
In the crossover match between the undefeated team of Marcus Hickman/Greg Adams/Ramdane Ould Ferroukh and the team on three wins Tom Sparks/Nathan Weibel/Jack Hughes, the latter won 13-3, leaving both teams on four wins.
In the five matches where teams on three wins faced each other, the results were:
- Ameen Miah/Martin Hughes/Sylvestre Mananasy/Sofiane Mehdi beat Philip Price/Ewan Cameron/Patrick Robiquet 13-3.
- Dan Cooper/Jeff Hoey/Les Shilling beat Francois Bourquin/Mark Jones/Charlie Littleton/Chris Wilmott 13-1.
- Jay Willcocks/Callum Lombard/Stuart Floyd/Tony Richards beat Adrian Emson/Myra Emson/Sarah Huntley 13-12
- Dean Ashby/Rowland Jones/Duncan Brown beat Daniel Deburgo/Kevin Carter/Jack Harman13-5.
- In the remaining crossover game Scott Ashby/Becky Edwins/Steve Brown/Tim Edwins (three wins) beat Drew Roe/Richard Dinnis/John Geddes (two wins) 13-8.
Final result
Teams then had a nervous wait while the computer churned out the results and the expected very tight tie break saw two teams on four wins cruelly missing out, Team Cooper and Team Willcocks.
Team Miah snuck in only after the fine BhN was calculated as both this team and Team Willcocks had a BhN of 13, meaning the total wins of their five opponents amounted to 13.
The fine BhN is the total of a team’s opponents BhN’s, basically a measure of how well the opponent’s opponents did during the day. Team Miah’s fBhN was six points more than that of Team Willcocks.
The tie break is based on an assessment of the strength of the performance on the day. If you are deemed to have a tougher draw, then you are ranked higher, regardless of any points difference in the matches you play.
In the 8th/9th tie break, if one of the opponents of Team Willcocks had won one more game, they would have gone through even though Team Miah had a plus points of 34 compared to the plus 2 of Team Willcocks.
Team Cooper was also unlucky with four wins out of five, despite their victory in the final round. Their BhN was one point further behind at 12.
At the end of this tournament, there can be little doubt that England has a very competitive squad who is intent on returning the trophy to PE. England international Becky Edwins will be the single female player travelling to Wales in August.
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