Palma match Day 2 - 22nd October
Report from Brisbane, Saturday 22 Oct. 11
Well, what can I say this morning, the morning after? The team is gutted, everyone is disappointed and wondering where we went wrong. Despite all the preparations and emails there were no prawns on the Palma Dinner menu and not even a whiff of cocoa in the desserts. We had to contend with salmon, chicken and pavlova (and that was nowhere near as good as my mum-in-law Margaret's pav). But it was a pleasant evening with lots of mingling with our old and new friends as we gracefully congratulated the winning teams.
Only a few hours earlier the team met for our last debrief with plenty more disappointment and regrets. I must say that Day 2 started much better than Day 1. I observed that the team appeared much more positive and relaxed in the morning and our 800 and 900 scores were an improvement on the previous day with the team averaging 73 at the second 900 running second to Great Britain for this range. The final 1000 yard range gave the coaches and shooters lots of grief with wind gusting 2 to 9 minutes from the left in variable light conditions. Most of our shooters appeared to struggle with this range with Canada leaping ahead of NZ to take 5th place.
Management will be producing their own reports and analysis when we get home, so let's report on some positives for now and look towards the next 4 years. There was brilliant shooting done by the young ones and that's looking very positive for NZ's future in this sport.
The Captain of the winning Great Britain team presented gifts to each of the top scorers and coach of the other teams. For us it just happened to be our Golden Pair of Mike and Snowdie. Mike received a cap and bottle opener (shaped as a target) and John received a Bisley wind flag. Cool, now we could practice on our back-lawn.
Anyway, I have 8 minutes left to get this report done in time for Hugh to post onto the Net before he heads away for the day, I have lots of photos to place, I will have to download those later. After I do something about this hangover.
No anagram this morning, can't make anything out of Disappointed Team.
Coby Snowden