The first event of the season took place at the Golden Mile in Bridgend a pub run by our very own french man Cyril Royer. in a delightful setting but with very difficult pistes.  As an ice breaker for the season he invited anyone and everyone for a France V Wales Boules match on the day Wales were to play France at Rugby

16 teams were entered a mixture of Welsh & French experienced and novice players.

Dan Murphy was drafted in to organize and make the draw. Teams selected what country they were going to represent, drew their playing number, then 8 welsh and 8 french teams began play.

The RFC's  Barbara Vaughan and Pat Daviss won 3 of their 4 games in the morning, but the pistes were difficult to master with novice players giving some of the more experienced players a run for their money.

In the end the final came down to the top French team, the RFC's Kon Tomczyk, playing with Ian Bailey and Jean-Yves Robic against the top welsh team, the RFC's Peter Beresford along with Tony Smith and Derek Jones.

Wales roared in to a 6-0 lead and the French could do nothing to stop them at 9- 2 down the French showed great resilience and started to turn the game around a point at a time. At 10 - 9 to the french and holding 2 points in the final end, the welsh shot to save the game unfortunately narrowly missing the holding boule, the welsh now out of boule gave the french to point in to win the game. Ian bailey played his last boule for the french team and put to within 3 inches of the cosh winning the game for the french 13 -9.
We all retired to the warmth of the pub for refreshments (some having a few too many!!!) and to watch the main event of the day Wales V France at Rugby.
We all enjoyed the traditional french dish of cassoulet at half time and watched Wales win the match.

A brilliant day was had by all,  well done to Cyril,  maybe we can make this an annual event in the future.

Report by Barbara Vaughan