Mulcahy and Franklin win second national title

PHYLLIS Court’s Patricia Mulcahy and Paul Franklin won their second association croquet (AC) British handicap title of the season last week at the National Seniors Championship at Budleigh Salterton.

With the veterans (over 65) trophies already held, the inform pair added the seniors (over 50) title and had to work hard for the achievement with some close results.

The duo opened with a 17-11 win over Joe King (Blewbury) and David Warhurst (Budleigh), before adding a more comfortable 16-6 victory against John Henderson (Penrith) and Jonathan Toye (Downham).

They were pegged back in their third block game with a 15-17 loss to Chris Donovan (Sidmouth) and Jim Field (Nailsea) but still finished top of their group thanks to a superior net hoops tally.

In the final, Mulcahy and Franklin had the game all their own way against David Wise (South Australia) and Peter Death (Nottingham) and before the time limit won 22-9.

Staying with AC, Phyllis Court’s first run in the national handicap Longman Cup came to an end in a close match with visitors East Dorset.

Raghu Iyer got the hosts off to a good start with a comprehensive 26-3 win against Christina Rice but Mulcahy and Franklin fell by the same score in the doubles rubber to Andy Dochniak and Steve Hogan.

Making her debut at this level, Phyllis Court’s Helen Essa was pipped by a single point, 19-20, in a timed-out game with Andy Meikle, which gave East Dorset a 2-1 half-time lead in the team match.

Iyer couldn’t live with Meikle in the afternoon singles and lost 26-6 but, buoyed by her morning close match, Essa beat Dochniak well 26-9 but the writing was on the wall for Phyllis Court with East Dorset well needing only one win in the remaining two matches. Phyllis Court’s fate was sealed when captain Franklin couldn’t hold the visitors’ Hogan and went down 16-13 before Mulcahy gave the hosts some comfort with a 19-17 win over Rice.

In other AC team results, Phyllis Court beat Blewbury 3-1 in the Southern Croquet Federation (SCF) Handicap League, with wins from Essa, Robin Coates and Roger Goldring but earlier losses see them out of that title race this season, while despite a 2-0 loss at Hamptworth, the Henley club are still in with a mathematical chance in the C-Level (7+) Advanced League.

Phyllis Court’s golf croquet teams were also in action last week with results that kept two of their teams at the top of their respective leagues.

The B team were held to a 4-4 draw at High Wycombe, the same result as April’s home match.

Raghu Iyer and Alastair Broom won both their matches, but Mulcahy and Mike Fensome’s matches were lost.

This dropped point could prove costly as Phyllis Court B now head the SCF 3+ League by only point with one match to play against Eynsham next week and need to win that and hope for a slip from rivals Blewbury B in their remaining two matches.

There was no such hiccup from Phyllis Court C as they set an Advantage league record in beating Harwell 15-1 with four wins each for captain Rob Eagle, Essa and Pete Falle, and three victories for Mulcahy.

Again, the team will need to win their one remaining match versus Eynsham at the end of this month and have results from others go their way, most notably those of clubmates Phyllis Court D who are only two league points behind, have three matches to play and look like title favourites.