Let's have your match reports on the good, the bad and the ugly. I'll start with all 3! I joined a scratch team for the National with 512 teams at Ruoms. I had played in a doubles with a scratch player the day before and was generally happy with my game. The terrains were the usual tarmac with stones and difficult to shoot and point. I was asked to shoot and whilst I explained that I normally point or middle as my shooting isn't good enough to succeed in a National of this level it was decided that was my spot. In general I played mediocre as a shooter, hitting around 55%. We managed to win the first game in a long battle, then waited 90 minutes for the 2nd game which was another LONG battle and we lost 13/12 which put us into a barrage against the team we played first. I hadn't eaten anything and bought a coke for a quick sugar fix and started to smash carreau for almost every shot and we won in 4 ends. My team mates departed for some reason and I got a message from them saying meet at 3pm on terrain 128. I arrived there at 2.45pm and the opposition were there practising. I then waited, and waited and waited. I sent messages to any team mates who I had just met that day with no response. Then after an hours I received a message saying we had lost by default as I hadn't shown up! The original message had a mistake, it was terrain 118 and a long way from where I was waiting. The lesson here is to check myself for terrains and not rely on others for information. I have also built a temporary terrain on the slip road by the house with some gravel to prepare for future Nationals on a similar nightmare piste.

https://youtu.be/lGq0lq7I_4A?is=NslVANp9LxdmVhwR

I really like this one.https://youtu.be/4HSJIZU8Ihk This siutations asks so many questions. If its the endgame and opponents have boule advantage like this you really need to ask yourself, Do we survive if we point 2 times? Is their shooter hitting everything? Is our best pointed boule enough to defend in this case? This is where its hard when you play with a new partner. But i have to say when i listen to Coach story it really felt like a nobrainer to shoot the jack every time. 😁 And really strong to just follow your own path when teammate is totally opposite. THAT i can feel sometimes is hard to do, if my partner want me to point and i want to shoot, when i finally convinced them that ill take the shot i feel like ive put on a ton of extra pressure. 🙂 @Kevin ORourke have a strong boule mind . I can recomend to watch this final from travemunde 2025. Especially the round that starts at 6,30 into the video. Here we can see confidence and a other interesting way to do it. tell me what you think https://www.youtube.com/live/6RuNTTg5rys?si=wmsQx6Xvz6EalETX

Something I've noticed in pétanque tournaments in Paris is that the cochonnet is often automatically given to a team because they have a female player, rather than tossing a coin. I understand that it’s meant to be polite or a form of chivalry. But I've also heard people argue that it’s a form of positive discrimination that treats female players differently. Is it a nice bit of traditional politeness, or should all players be treated equally regardless of who they are? 🤔

Let’s have your reports from this weekend. What went well and what didn’t. What did you learn? For me I played a different comp every evening this week and was tinkering with my gesture. Nothing huge just attempting to replicate Kantaros style. I got battered today by a MUCH better team and I learnt that I need to change tactics much quicker when my instincts kick in. In addition I don’t need to focus so much on boule to boule shooting IF the terrain allows for rafle style as I only just beat a team who shot every boule that way with a high percentage of carreau and they didn’t care.