On 8 March sixteen members of the Canberra Croquet Club came together for the annual Tavender Trophy gateball doubles competition.

The club recently held a three weeks of “Introduction to gateball” sessions to introduce seven canberra croquet players to gateball. The introductory sessions introduced members to the specialist gateball shots, the rules and protocols of the game through a series of drills, discussions, mini-games and matches. International box, hunting and bombard mini-games proved a hit with the newcomers.

Six of the seven newly trained gateballers enrolled and competed in their first competition in the 2015 Tavender Trophy. They were joined by 10 experienced players for the competition including six previous winners. High-low pairs were drawn in the morning and play commenced with the eight pairs split into two blocks for the round robin matches.

The competition was extremely close with seven of the eight pairs still in with a chance of winning the competition as competitors enjoyed a hearty lunch..

At the completion of the blocks the semi-finalists emerged with Glen Whitehead & Judy Tier defeating Peter Tavender & Hilary White 14-9 while Gilon Smith and Adrienne Fazekas snuck past Kristina Whitehead and Margo Davies 10-9.

The final saw Gilon Smith and Adrienne Fazekas as the better pair leading 15-11 leading into the last turn. Glen fought back and scored gates two and three (and sparked a ball through gate 2) but missed the peg, which left the final score at 15-14 with Gilon and Adrienne the winners.

Results are available on croquetscores.

Congratulations to all competitors, particularly the six members participating in their first competition who all played very well. Congratulations to Adrienne on winning her first gateball competition and to Gilon for becoming the first member to win three straight Tavender Trophies. A history of winners is available on this website.

Bob Gingold sparking.

2007 and 2014 champion Tony Hall.

Peter Tavender hitting onto the court

New player Margo Davies sparking

Kristina Whitehead attacking a white ball

Judy Tier taking instruction before a long rush
Adrienne sparking

Finalists: Gilon Smith, Adrienne Fazekas, Glen Whitehead and Judy Tier