NSW Open 2005: Tim Murphy runner-up

Last week the NSW open tournament was held at Tempe and Chatswood.

Tim Murphy representing Nowra played at Tempe.

On Tuesday Tim won all three games beating

Ron Johnstone 20 to 18

Nick McCoun 26 to 4 and John Balantyne 26 to 23

Wednesday Tim again excelled himself by winning two out of two games

Beating John Levick 26 to 4 and Dennis Faggoter 26 to 21

Thursday was another successful day for Tim, beating Chris Wilson 26 to 6 and Nerida Taylor 26 to 17.

 Tim was the only player in the tournament to win all of his matches leading up to the Quarter finals

A block at Tempe

T Murphy 7 wins John Balantyne 6 Ron Johnstone 4 Dennis Faggoter 3 John Levick 3 Nick McCoun 3 Nerida Taylor 2 Chris Wilson 0

B Block at Chatswood

Tony hall 6 Graham Scott 4 Geoff McDonald 4 Pam Gentle 4 Ken Edwards 3 John Eddies 3 Michael Bidencope 3 Robyn Stock 1

Friday: quarter finals Tim beat Pam Gentle 2 games to 1

Ron Johnstone beat Graham Scott 2-1

Tony hall beat Dennis Faggoter 2-0

And John Balantyne beat Geof McDonald 2-0

Croquet games usually are played to a time limit but in the quarter finals semi finals and finals there is no limit and the result is decided on a best of

three basis

Tim and Pam Took 8 hours 25 minutes to reach a result in their Quarter final

Saturday: semi finals

Tim Played Ron Johnstone, Tim winning 2-0

The first game Tim won 26-15

The second game Tim again the winner had to make a three ball break from hoop 2 to peg out and win 26-25.A most exciting game

Sunday: finals Tim played Tony Hall loosing the first game 26-0 and the second 26-6

An excellent effort for Tim to be runner up in the state loosing only 3 games out of 14

Margaret Sawers

NSW Men’s Open and Bronze Pennants

Tim Murphy Played in the men’s singles championship on the weekend of the 16th July Although Tim didn’t win he accounted for himself extremely well beating

Tony Hall ( Hcp 0.5)26 to 12,R Fenwick-Elliot 26to 11And Peter Tavender ( Hcp1 ) 24 to 23

Tim lost to D Faggoter (Hcp 0)  26 to 1,G McDonald (Hcp 0.5) 24 to 22,and Neil Hartley (3) 26 to 16

Placing Tim fourth out of seven in his block, narrowly missing out on a place in the finals

Thursday July 28th Nowra’s Bronze pennant team played at Tempe against the maitland team. Nowra were victorious three games to nil

Graham Cullen won his game 16 hoops to 13. Graham was behind for most of the game but in true Graham fashion came in the winner after he made a courageous

7hoop break to gain the lead and win the match

Margaret Sawers won her game 16 to 9.

Oie Malcolm and Colleen McIntire won their singles 7 to 5 this was a close match all through

Thursday 4th august the Nowra team again played at Tempe. This time against Cameray

Cameray were the winners 2 games to 1 all matches were extremely close

Graham Cullen won his match 12 hoops to 9

Margaret Sawers Lost a cliff hanger 18 to 14

And Fay Lochrin and Oie Malcolm lost 9to 7

Congratulations to Nowra on being the state runnerup for 2005

On the weekend (30-31 July 2005) Tim Murphy competed in the Premier
Pennants. There were four sides in the Premier Pennants largely put together
by CNSW based on geographical location of the players. Tim played in the
Country Composite side. Each match consisted on 2 doubles and 4 singles.

On paper the Country side looked the weakest side so they were wrapped to
beat the Southerners in the first match 4 games to 2.

Next up were the favourites National Park. The Country side took National
Park to the wire finishing the match 3 games all but National Park won by 10
hoops on count back.

The final match for Country, with all players starting to show fatigue, was
against the Northerners. Based on the results so far it seemed likely that
the winner of this match would be the runner-up in the competition. After
winning the 2 doubles matches the Country team were very hopeful. 3 of the 4
singles games were very close and anyone's to win but in the end the
Northerners beat Country 4 games to 2.

The order for the singles games was based on World Rankings; Tim played as
Country's number 3 player. All of Tim's opponents had higher World Rankings
but he still came away with 2 wins from 3 games in the singles. In the
doubles Tim paired with Michael Walker from Bundanoon winning 2 from 3
games; the one loss by this pair was by one hoop.

Margaret Sawers