The summer season of Petanque got off to a flying start with the first Regional Qualifier held at The Rayne Swan on Sunday.
With the highest number of entries for several seasons the 21 teams were a mixture of experienced Great Britain players right through to novices playing in their first tournament.
Top team of the day were Rayne Swan 2 (Dean Middleton, Graham McDougall, Colin Sams & Clare Courtney) who completed the day unbeaten with six wins.
Two teams finished with 5 wins apiece, YPC & Le Tic Tac, with the latter taking second place on points difference.
The game of the day was probably in the very first round between GBU, (Chris Allen, Vanessa Webb & Michelle Tarbun) and BSC (Bill Eve, Simon Doble & Chris Parr). The game lasted 1hr 45 mins and was finally won by BSC 13-12.
Six teams finished with 4 wins, Onley Boys were one of them. They had an easy win over Debden Sports followed by a narrow loss to Le Tic Tac, in a game where the team were 0-8 down after two ends. They recovered to take the lead but could not take the win. An unbeaten afternoon session started with an excellent 13-8 win over BSC.
Towers 2 also won 4 and were the last team playing when they finally defeated En Passant 13-9.
Towers 1, Colne Angel & Rayne Swan 1 had three wins each with Swan 1 gaining their best win of the day in their last game against BSC.
En Passant along with Rayne Cock and Thorley 1 managed 2 wins each.
The Onley Girls (Tracey Austin, Beryl Gibson and Nikki Blows) were rewarded with just one win despite some good performances. A win over Victorians 3, 13-11, had Nikki Blows pointing well and the team were outstanding against the strong BSC team.
5 teams managed 1 win, but this included Victorians 3 who were playing for the first time in a competition of this size, which should encourage them for the next two qualifying rounds.