Fantastic weekend for Sussex at the Inter-Regional Championships

The EPA held its Inter-Regional Championships in Hayling Island over the weekend of 12/13 September and Sussex Petanque had a full squad taking part, made up of eight teams in Div 1 of the Main Championship, four teams in Div 2 of the Challenge Tournament and one team in the Junior Championship.

Sussex were promoted to Div 1 of the Main for the first time in our history last year which meant that we would be up against some of the best players and teams in the country this year. It is not unusual for newly promoted teams to struggle at the higher level and so "yo-yo" between Div 1 and Div 2, but we were all hoping that with everyone trying their best we might be able to do enough to stay in the top division. As it turned out we surpassed even our most optimistic hopes and finished mid table in 5th place. Once again, team manager Dawn Constable did an amazing job of organising the whole squad, both before and during the weekend. Final results for Div 1 are shown below.

Our stars of the weekend however were the Junior team of Morgan Pry, Callum Slade and Kira Croft. They only formed as a team just over a year ago but with great support from their parents and under the team management of Les & Lindsey MacDonnell they continue to develop and go from strength to strength. They put in amazing performances throughout the weekend, taking on some of the best junior players in the country and beating many of them. They were the joint best performing junior team on day 1 and the second best on day 2 and finished runners-up to claim silver medals.  A real credit to themselves and to the region.    

Kira, Morgan & Callum

Our squad in Div 2 of the Challenge tournament had a solid weekend, finishing 5th overall with the high-light being that they were the best performing squad in Div 2 on the Sunday. Many thanks to Lisa Turner who stepped in at the last minute to act as team manager for the Challenge squad. Final results for Div 2 are shown below.  

Full results from the Inter-Regional Championships can be found on the results page of the EPA website and the detailed results that involved teams from Sussex Petanque will also be available in the Download area of the Documents page on this website. 

Congratulations to everyone involved in making this such a successful weekend for Sussex Petanque, whether players, organisers or supporters. Let's hope that next year will be just as good !!!