By John Thomson
On Monday 24 October Lilydale played away at Sandringham in the Level Play Shield. The Lilydale v Sandringham games are always close, but Lilydale were going into this game with some confidence having beaten Sandringham earlier in the year.
One of Lilydale’s players, Ray Ogle, is out injured and won’t play for the rest of the season, so it will be Glenn Crook, Craig McCracken and Alan Jones who will play out the remaining three games.
As always the doubles is the first game and Lilydale’s top pairing of Craig McCracken and Alan Jones set the tone for the day and came away with a comfortable win. Lilydale 7 hoops to Sandringham 3 hoops.
The first of the singles games saw Lilydale’s captain, Glenn Crook play. Glenn has been in some patchy form of late and was obviously keen to make amends by really not letting the Sandringham player get into the game at all. Glenn won 7 hoops to Sandringham 1 hoop.
Next game was a lot closer with Sandringham having their best game of the day. Lilydale fought hard and was able to get a couple of hoops in front and came away with the win, 7 hoops to Sandringham 5 hoops.
After the break were the reverse singles. These two games saw Lilydale have two comfortable wins. Lilydale 7 hoops to Sandringham 4 hoops a piece.
The final score for the day was Lilydale 5 games 35 hoops to Sandringham 0 games 17 hoops. Certainly, a dominant performance by the Lilydale team.
This win keeps Lilydale on top of the ladder undefeated. With just two rounds to play, Lilydale has secured the Spring Shield, the focus now is to see if they can go through the season undefeated.
On Thursday 27 of October, Lilydale travelled to Monash for the Handicap Shield.
Monash Croquet Club’s courts are quite unique as they slope down towards the Northern end, which gives the home team quite an advantage in how to play their courts.
Due to a prior commitment Lilydale’s Alan Jones was unable to play this week, which meant first season player Mick Crawley was going to have to step up and play more time.
The first game was close, Lilydale’s Glenn Crook, who was giving away three extra turns because of the difference in their handicaps, still came away with a 7 hoops to Monash 5 hoops win.
The next game was the doubles and this saw Mick Crawley pairing with Craig McCracken in the absence of Alan Jones. The change of combination seemed to have little effect with Mick playing extremely well, Lilydale winning 7 hoops to Monash 1 hoop.
In the next game Monash came out looking for some redemption and had a really good win, Monash 7 hoops to Lilydale’s 3 hoops.
The next doubles match saw Lilydale’s Glenn Crook and Mick Crawley pair up. The pair of them were definitely on a mission in this game and did not give Monash a look-in, winning 7 hoops to Monash 0 hoops.
The last singles game of the day saw Lilydale’s Glenn Crook have a comfortable win, winning 7 hoops to Monash 2 hoops.
Even though Lilydale had won the day, Monash was not going to make it easy for them in the last doubles game.
This game was tight all the way through and after 12 hoops had been played the score was 6 hoops a piece, so it was off to the thirteenth hoop to see who could break the deadlock. Lilydale eventually won the game winning 7 hoops to Monash 6 hoops.
At the end of play the scores were Lilydale 5 games 38 hoops to Monash 1 game 21 hoops.
This win puts Lilydale up to second on the ladder. There are two catch up games to come next week, which were postponed earlier in the season because of the weather.
