Day 10

Today was the culmination of the week’s shooting at Perry, with a team match of fifteen to count at 800, 900 and 1,000 yards. We entered a team of eight against Canada and an extremely strong USA team, and a team of four against Australia (with the 1st and 3rd placed individuals on board) and the USA. The team assembled promptly in the morning at the 800 yard firing point, despite a problem with one of the golf carts becoming stuck in reverse.

The match started promptly as there were no tie shoots to begin the day and the conditions were quite benign, with winds that were much less blustery than the previous day. After 800 yards, the VIII and IV had only dropped one point each to put them in contention. 900 also proved to be relatively straight forward and the VIII dropped a few more points to go into lunch 8 off, whilst the IV were 4 off.

Lunch was taken, despite it only being 11am, to allow the people working in the pits (butts) to have a break from the hot conditions down there. It should be noted that this is the first time that paid markers have been provided at Perry – the usual thing to do here is spend the entire day on the ranges both shooting and marking with no breaks. It should be said that in general the standard of marking has been very good.

1,000 yards was to prove to be the decisive distance, as is often the case. Wind was not a major issue, causing only a couple of dropped points, but both teams found their groups opening up substantially. Overall, the VIII ended up with a total of 30 off and the IV dropped exactly half as many points (15 off). This left the VIII in second place to USA, while the IV was beaten by a superb Australian team (who dropped 5 overall) and just pipped into third by the USA team, who dropped 11 points. Individual honours for the day went to Jon Underwood in the VII and Angus McLeod in the IV, both with scores of 223, although Tom Drysdale did manage to score significantly more v-bulls (31) than anyone else on the team. Very promising for the remainder of the tour was the closeness of all the team’s results, suggesting that there will be stiff competition for places in the team in the matches in Canada.

The afternoon was given over to some brief down time before getting showered and dolled up in No. 1s for the prize giving, which had helpfully been brought forward to 5pm from, 8pm. This allowed the team to go out for dinner and do some more team bonding, while saying farewell to many of the US shooters and the BCRC group at the shooters’ bar. Next up are a few days’ much needed R & R in Ohio and then Algonquin Provincial Park before we move on to Connaught…