The Outdoor Season got underway in glorious sunshine at Greeba on Sunday. There was no wind to speak of and conditions were as near perfect as could be. The round of the day was a WA1440 (90/70/50/30m for the men 70/60/50/30m for the women). shot as part of the Club’s Scratch League. In the run up to the Island Games all the rounds will be metric to give the team plenty of practice.

In the Gents Compound division Billy Lightfoot took on father and son Dave and Rhys Moore. Rhys got off to a flying start and was never in any danger of being caught and it was down to a fight for second place between Dave and Billy. Dave’s 90m effort was woeful (sleepless nights due to lambing season taking their toll) leaving him 21 points adrift of Billy. Dave managed to claw back a handful of points at the second distance but suffered another dip in form at the 50m mark which saw Billy outscore him even though he had a miss. Dave recovered again at the 30m scoring a perfect 60 points with his last six arrows but it was nowhere near enough and Billy Lightfoot, who started the day without proper sight marks, took second place.

Also shooting were Pete Mumford and Simon Musgrove who shot a Long Metric in the morning session. Pete had a bit of slow start and found himself 13 points behind Simon after the first distance. Pete clawed back 9 points over the next distance but Simon finished 4 points ahead with a personal best score of 588.

In the Ladies Compound Joy Gough put in a variable performance which was only to be expected at the beginning of the season. She was particularly disappointed with her 50m score but recovered well at 30m to easily record a Bowman equivalent score.

Danny Cowin was less than happy with his performance over the day in the Gents Recurve and finished well below his best score. Josh Trafford turned up for the afternoon session and shot a Short Metric (50/30m) with indifferent results.

Barbara Harris approached the shoot as an exercise in stamina, having only shot single afternoon sessions Indoors consisting of 60 arrows, the prospect of a full day’s 144 arrows was a little daunting. The new heavier poundage limbs meant that Barbara could actually aim at the target at the longest distance rather than at the flag. Her delight was short lived however, as she had two misses at both the 60 and 50m distances. The 30m was distinctly better and she managed to accumulate enough points to shoot a Bowman equivalent score.

Results – WA1440 – Gents Compound – 1. R. Moore 144/1311/54/27, 2. B.Lightfoot 143/1235/37/9, 3. D.Moore 144/1216/44/17. Ladies Compound – J.Gough 144/1243/31/11. Gents Recurve – D.Cowin 141/1032/17/5. Ladies Recurve – B.Harris 139/1051/13/3. Long Metric – 1. S.Musgrove 72/588/10/2pb, 2. P.Mumford 72/584/9/2. Short Metric – J.Trafford 72/548/7/2.