Archers from the Isle of Man were in action at home and abroad at the weekend. Tilly Ashton travelled to Oxford to compete in the UK Junior Masters, while Dave and Rhys Moore went over to Scotland to take part in the 68th Scottish Championships. This only left a handful of archers at home to shoot a 720 round.

The story of the weekend was provided by Tilly Ashton who went to the UK Junior Masters hosted by Oxford Archers. The shoot was blessed with brilliant sunshine and Tilly made the best of it, recording a personal best and setting a New Club Record score of 579/14/7 as she swept to victory in the u14 Girls. As well as taking the gold medal in her age group Tilly’s terrific score saw her ranked #1 going into the Champion of Champion Head to Head round.

The H2H round was an Olympic Sets format, three arrows each – winner gets 2 points, a tied score means 1 point apiece – first to 6 wins the match. The semi-final stage against Ella Shield of Cleve Archers actually went to a 1 arrow shoot off as both archers tied on 5 points apiece. Both girls hit the 10 with their respective arrow but Tilly’s was 1mm closer to the centre and this put her through to the final – such are the margins of victory in archery. Ella went on to win the Bronze medal in the shoot off. In the final Tilly came up against Emelia Belshaw of Burleigh Bowmen. Although Emelia won the tie 6 – 0 Tilly only lost the sets by one point each time which was a tremendous effort and she came away with a Silver medal to add to the Gold she had already won. Congratulations on a very successful weekend that truly reflected the amount of hard work and dedication shown by Tilly and her support team, otherwise known as Uncle Dave.

The 68th Scottish Championships at Ayr attended by Dave and Rhys Moore saw the worst of the weather over the weekend. Saturday was overcast and windy for the WA1440 round (3 dozen arrows at each of four distances – 90/70/50/&30m) but Rhys Moore managed to take second place in the Men’s Compound division with a Master Bowman score of 1314. He shot a season’s best at 90m and set a high score for the day of 336 at 50m. Dave Moore came in 5th with a score of 1276.

The weather in Scotland deteriorated drastically on the Sunday as the boys shot the WA720 ranking round (72 arrows at 50m), Rhys shot a 658 to place him in 2nd, while Dave’s 649 was good enough for 4th. Heavy rain then hampered the Head to Head which was held in the afternoon, with Rhys and Dave both going out in the first round along with the top seed. Rhys Moore finished the weekend 4th overall, with Dave’s final position yet to be confirmed. Well done to both men.

At Greeba the weather forecast predicted rain by late morning so the decision was taken to shoot a 720 as quickly as possible in the hopes of getting away before the downpour hit. Only six archers turned up to shoot, two Recurve and four Compound. Danny Cowin and Barbara Harris amused themselves with a side bet on the outcome of their 70m round which Danny easily won. Harris lacking both focus and form recorded yet another miserable score.

In the Ladies Compound division Joy Gough’s uncharacteristic miss early on marred an otherwise solid round.

The Gents Compound provided the only direct competition of the day with Pete Mumford, Simon Musgrove and Billy Lightfoot going for glory at 50m. Billy Lightfoot, hampered by the fact that the muggy conditions made his glasses steam up, had to settle for third place.

Simon held the lead from the beginning and appeared to have secured the win but the score sheet was found to be incorrect on closer inspection by the Records Officer. Simon did have a four point advantage going into the final dozen arrows but the ever relaxed Pete Mumford put in a dozen total of 109 to Simon Musgrove’s 103 to take the win by 2 points. The Records Officer would like to remind everyone that while one archer on each boss is the designated scorer, it is down to the individual archer to make sure that the scores attributed to them are correct before they sign the scorecard.

Results WA720 – Gents Recurve – D.Cowin 72/484/1/1. Ladies Recurve – B.Harris 70/438/4/2. Ladies Compound – J.Gough 71/616/13/2. Gents Compound – 1.P.Mumford 72/640/25/9, 2.S.Musgrove 72/638/19/3, 3.B.Lightfoot 71/628/17/7.