Following in the footsteps of Barbara Vaughan, Tansy Mayfield of the RFC along with Julie Bailey and Gemma Foster represented Wales at the European Championships in Ghent, Belgium last weekend.  The competition started early with the Precision Shooting.  Having spent hours practicing (as the dog walkers of Caerleon will testify!) and having an average score of 20 for this, I was disappointed to get 17 and even more disappointed to discover I’d had 8 points deducted for having my foot touching the shooting mat: smaller shoes next time!   I survived with nerves intact though. 

We had a decent draw in the opening round playing Ireland, Jersey and the Czech Republic.  We beat Jersey, and pulled of a surprise defeat by beating the Czechs who have had medals at the last 2 Europeans. We lost our 3rd game to Ireland despite leading all the way: on the last end a combination of Irish luck and temporary welsh incompetence meant that they scored 5 to win 13-11.  This was gutting to say the least, but our points were enough to ensure that we went through as top team into the Main Competition – the only home nation to do so. 

Unsurprisingly, the European Cup was much harder work.  In the first round, we played okay but were beaten soundly Poland who played a virtually faultless game.  We played our most patchy and loose game against Belgium 2.   However, we rounded it off by playing well against Turkey: we lost to 4 but it was a long, well-played and aggressively fought game and the score didn’t do the game justice (though the result did, to be fair!).  We were disappointed not to give a better account of ourselves in the second stage, but overall we were pleased with the positive way that we played all weekend, and with getting into the Main.