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Bathurst Rifle Club Inc 16th April 2016 Captains Trophy, 900yards

            While the Bathurst pair of Graeme Bright and Steve Williams battle out the Victorian State Championships in Bendigo, another local pair, Geoff Willis and Jeff Eppleston, tried out with twelve other NSW hopefuls for a position in the Australian team to compete in the 2017 F-class World Championships in Canada. The trial was a chance to impress the selectors and gave the local shooters an opportunity to do so on their home range. They should not have been disappointed as the weather conditions threw up a familiar set of testing conditions.

           The light breeze and strong mirage combined to test the ability of shooters and coaches to read the changes which were many and varied. At times the directional flags seemed to follow the changes with quite some lag. The conditions were perfect to assess both coaches, wind reading ability, and shooters equipment and ammunition.

           As for the small local contingent who turned out it was another lathering for most with only Nick Cock showing any semblance of mastery over the conditions and even then he was caught out on two occasions. Cock’s pair of 49.05’s was a street ahead of his rivals who were continually flummoxed by the strength of the changes which did not seem to be reflected in the attitude of the directional flags.

           Gordon Shepherd scrabbled to four on without dropping a point but then straddled the bulls ‘eye ring with a run of six inner fours. John Coghill did a little better but only luck and thick white lines prevented a disaster. The second stage was even worse as Coghill was turned inside out with a change which resulted in a pair of outer twos to bring his challenge to a grinding halt. Shepherd then set about correcting the situation but he also came to grief dropping 3 points on his last two shots. Shepherd held on to defeat Coghill by one point and was lucky to do so as Coghill had a swag of centre bulls 'eyes to his favour. 

           As the only F-class competitor Ben Wright could only watch the Australian team hopefuls pound the super centre and wish he also had a coach on his case. Wright had to battle on his own and found the windage aids no help as his group blew out, but he did manage to start with a super centre in his second stage but that was the end of his day’s joy. Cock won the Captains Trophy by a good margin over Coghill. 

           Next week we return to the 500 yard mound to continue the L Williams Cup. 

Scores:

J Coghill TRB 89.06 (12)100

N Cock TRA 98.10 (1 ½) 99 ½

G Shepherd TRA 90.01 (6 ½) 96 ½

B Wright FSB 100.1 (12) 93 ¼