Congratulations to Myles Duggan & Levi Franks from Cashmere High School for winning the National Secondary Schools Tournament held at United Croquet Club on the weekend of 7^th and 8^th September. Te Kiri King and Isabelle Tong from Hawera High School were runners-up. Josh Winter and James Duggan also from Cashmere High School were placed third. What a great result for Cashmere High School, Cashmere Croquet and their coaches and mentors. Take a bow Gay!

Not only were Cashmere members cheering on their boys, they managed to find time to provide the food for the Event Dinner on Saturday night.

Other Canterbury teams were Yani Rutherford & Molly Campbell of St Margaret’s and Rudolf Steiner. After a slow start the St Margaret’s team won their last three games in a row.

Special thanks to United Croquet Club who hosted the event and provided non-stop food and drinks over the bitterly cold weekend and to Jenny Clarke who managed the tournament.

Of course, it just didn’t happen without a huge amount of work in putting the event together over many months, thanks to Lyn Dawson And Owen.

There were 24 teams from throughout New Zealand organised into four blocks of six teams. The top 16 then contested the knockout.

Non-qualifiers for the knockout stages contested the 2019 Plate event.

The practice day on Friday was very wet and cold and most of the day was spent with the kids inside playing board games and waiting for the lawns to dry out. The newly installed heat pump was much appreciated. The manager, Jenny Clarke provided pizzas and most of the food bought in for the following weekend tournament. This was paid by United with contributions from some parents.

Sunday play started with temperatures around 3 degrees and MANY of the kids ended up with hands turning unhealthy looking shades of red or blue. Some “Hot Hands” handwarmers were distributed to those looking in most need.

Names of players in all teams and all results can be found at Croquet Scores https://croquetscores.com/2019/gc/nz-secondary-schools-golf-croquet-national-championship. Also check out the Croquet New Zealand facebook page https://www.facebook.com/croquetnzpage/.