Croquet triumph for Marlborough

Marlborough are the 2023 South Island teams croquet champions.

After two days of tight, hard competition Brian Goodwin, David Grigg, Joy Hayes and Leah Thomson, representing Marlborough Croquet, claimed the South Island Teams title in Ashburton on Sunday, March 19.

Five Mainland regions were represented in Ashburton - Canterbury, Nelson, Otago, Marlborough and South Canterbury sending the best players in each of four grades. Croquet divides all the players in New Zealand into four grades based on handicap. At the top is premier, then senior, intermediate and primary.

Being new to this established event, Marlborough’s players were relatively inexperienced, some teams boasting representatives that had played in the world croquet competitions and others being past and present winners of New Zealand national age grade croquet events.

The Marlborough quartet contested the singles on Saturday, at the end of which Joy and David were leading in each of their grades with Brian second in his grade. At Saturday’s end, the top three teams were well ahead of the rest with Canterbury on 100 hoops won, Marlborough on 94 and Nelson on 93.

On Sunday, Leah combined exceptionally well with Joy in the pairs, winning all their games, while Brian and David won their last two games.

With one game to play the top two teams, Canterbury and Marlborough, were well ahead of the rest and separated by just one point. The game was close but the last hoop was scored by Marlborough, giving them the seven points they needed to get their hands on the coveted trophy.

Joy achieved the rare distinction of winning all the games she played over the two days of competition.