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Jaques Cochonnet Challenge November 2006
This is the Masterton Petanque Club's statement as read out by Graeme Morris at the WPA Special Meeting of Thursday 23 November 2006. Please note that this document from our Masterton club was not included on the Special Meeting page, but links to these two were: "Jacques Cochonnet Trophy - Orginal Rules Proposal" and "Jacques Cochonnet Trophy Challenge". I wonder why it was left out - lucky we have the Wiki. -Tom.
The challenge for the Jaques Cochonnet trophy set down for 11th November 2006 was not able to be played because the executive of the WPA decided that because there was “apparent difficulty” with the two clubs concerned agreeing on a suitable playing date and the match was deferred until a meeting could be held to review the current rules which have become “fudged” over time, It is likely the meeting will be held early next year.
It is not the case that the clubs could not agree. We had not completed negotiations.
The situation is as follows:
1) The Masterton club secretary received an email (dated 23 October) from Michael Rocks stating that as the allocated date of 11th November clashed with the national doubles championships Khandallah would like to see if we could arrive at an alternative date.
The dates offered were:
Sat 4 November is free
Sun 5 November is our Presidents’ Shield match against Hataitai (this has already been moved once and it can’t really be moved again as it is held in conjunction with the bowling club.
Sat 11 and Sun 12 November - National Doubles
Sat 18 November - now the first round of the interclub
Sun 19th November - free
Sat 25 November - free
Sun 26th November - Upper Hutt Swiss Doubles - something our club usually supports.
Given that the first notification was 23rd October this did not give us long to arrange the dates.
2) The Masterton club committee discussed the request and decided that as we could field a team on the allocated day of 11th November we saw no need to change the date. It should be noted that we had at least 2 top players unavailable on this date.
As club captain I responded to Michael’s email advising that we wished to proceed with the allocated date.
Michael replied that there is a misunderstanding about the dates for the JC challenge. During the discussion (WPA meeting on 18 August 2005) to adopt the “second Saturday of the month” clause, it was recognised that this date may not be suitable every month due to clashes with other events. Clashes with Easter, Regional or National competitions were considered fair grounds for changing the date. Consequently, my earlier letter to Barbara was to determine an acceptable alternative date for the match.
3) My response dated 26 November stated that there was no reference in the minutes of that meeting to specific events which are “fair grounds” for changing the date of a challenge and as Masterton could field a team 11 November is the date it should be played.
This was as far as negotiation reached before the executive postponed the match.
Note here that our challenge was originally scheduled for October but has already been deferred once because Khandallah negotiated to play their challenge in the following month: This in itself is a breech of the rules which states “ Each holder of the trophy is required to play one challenge per month, except for the months of December and January which will be treated as a single month”
I would like to point out at this stage that when Masterton was due to challenge for the trophy in April 2005 Khandallah insisted the match be played on the same date as we had scheduled our club doubles championships because no other date was suitable to them. We explained that we could not change the date of our club champs. As a result Khandallah considered we had defaulted the match.
This has left a bad feeling with many of our club members.
So, for the second time in 3 challenges Masterton have been denied the opportunity to play the holders of the trophy
By way of the executive postponing the match Khandallah have got what they wanted - a change of date at the very least.
Masterton has a proud history in this trophy and we value the trophy very highly. I think it is fair to say that during our 38 defenses of the trophy since 1999 I do not recall that we had any difficulty in agreeing to a playing date with ANY challenger.
I have heard some people say that the format for the Jaques Cochonnet trophy should be changed. I strongly believe that the format should not be changed. The trophy has a great history and this problem adds to the history of the trophy. It is only the way in which teams negotiate playing days that need to be tampered with - not the overall concept of the competition.
The above is the Masterton Petanque Club statement as read out by Graeme Morris at the Special Meeting of Thursday 23 November 2006.
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