Major coup scored for petanque club

13.12.2007 Wairarapa Times-Age newspaper. By Gary Caffell.

The Masterton Petanque Club have achieved a major coup with the news that three French players with a remarkable 19 world titles between them will be playing at their Queen Elizabeth Park headquarters in Masterton on January 29. Phillipe Quintais, Phillipe Suchaud and Bruno Rocher are to contest the New Zealand open championships in Auckland on January 26 and 27 and will be heading to Masterton after the completion of their commitments there. Their expertise is well illustrated by the fact that of the 600,000 petanque players registered in 75 countries, France has 400,000 of them and Quintais, Suchaurd and Rocher are the cream of the crop there.

Quintais already has 10 world championships to his credit, Suchaud eight and Rocher one with Rocher also having two world junior titles on his curriculum vitae. Their expertise is well illustrated by the fact that of the 600,000 petanque players registered in 75 countries, France has 400,000 of them and Quintais, Suchaurd and Rocher are the cream of the crop there. Little wonder then that a former chief executive officer for Petanque New Zealand in Graeme Morris is excited at the prospect of them playing in Masterton.

Morris, who has seen the trio in action in his travels as manager of New Zealand teams, says it is hard to describe just how talented they are at a sport which requires considerable skill and concentration. "They are as good as you would get, I guess their record speaks for itself," Morris said. "World titles are very hard to come by and they've got plenty of them."

The actual playing programme for the Frenchmen in Masterton has yet to be confirmed but Morris considers it will probably involve them having demonstration games amongst themselves and then playing a series of games against teams made up from clubs operating in such places as Hawke's Bay, Wanganui, Palmerston North and, of course, Masterton. "It's not every day that local players have the opportunity to compete against the very best in the world and we want to give them that chance," Morris said. Accompanying the three French players to New Zealand will be the technical director of the French Petanque Federation Victor Nalif.

Meanwhile, two members of the Masterton club, Doug and Helene Hay (image on left), won that club's first-ever national title in Christchurch last weekend when they took out the doubles event in the over-60 section at the New Zealand championships. It was the continuation of some excellent form for Helene Hay who, along with Masterton clubmate Lorriane Gibbons, had earlier qualified to compete for New Zealand against Australia in the Trans-Tasman trophy fixture in April-May of next year.

This article is courtesy of APN News & Media Ltd 2007.

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