I hope you and you families are continuing to stay safe and well.
You may have seen in today’s news that the UK Government has now launched it’s long-awaited NHS COVID-19 track and trace app for England & Wales for mobile phones.
Amongst other features, this allows the user to scan a QR code at any premises/venue/event they may be attending.
The UK Government has also released details of downloading, printing and using QR codes. These can be downloaded by Clubs or event organisers to allow people to scan using the NHS app.
The WPA Exec would encourage all its members who are able to download and use the mobile phone app.
In addition, we would encourage all Clubs and event organisers to download and use a QR Code for players to scan when they arrive at the venue/event.
When WPA-organised competitions return, we intend to make use of this facility and will produce a new QR code for each event (this will leave host Clubs free to use their own QR code for their own members.
Our Guidelines for Clubs and Players have been updated to reflect this, and can be found on our COVID-19 Webpage. The link to the UK Government website to obtain a QR code is in the Guidance for Clubs and on the COVID-19 webpage.
In the meantime, we appreciate your ongoing patience, and hope you and your families stay healthy.
With the latest news from the Welsh Government (WG), and yesterday’s announcement of a further 4 areas of South Wales put into a lockdown state, the WPA EC feels it has no choice but to postpone the National events that were scheduled to be played in the next few weeks.
These were:
National Precision Shooting: Women & Men
National Mixed Doubles
National Singles: Women
National Singles: Men
Although this is regrettable, we hope our members understand that this decision was not taken lightly, but was done-so with everyone’s health, safety and well-being in the forefront of our minds.
We will continue to monitor the situation and we wish to assure our members that, when the circumstances allow we will look to reschedule as many of these events as we are able.
Although the WG advice continues to allow groups of up to 30 to meet outdoors for organised activities (subject to the same guidelines as we have published previously), and we would encourage all members to support their local clubs if they wish to continue to play, we must remind members that travel into or out of a lockdown area is only for essential purposes – and playing sports does not fall into that category.
We also understand that this is a difficult time for Clubs who may be missing out on some income that they rely on from hosting competitions, running open-days, etc.
If Clubs are struggling financially, we would like to remind you that, as we have previously briefed out, Sport Wales has a Be Active Wales Fund that clubs are encouraged to apply to for assistance.
Pontyclun PC, based at Pontyclun RFC, once again played host to a National Championships – this time for the Men’s Doubles.
Originally due to be held at another venue, a last-minute issue meant that an 11th-hour change was needed and the WPA are very grateful to the Executive of Pontyclun PC, and Marie Jones in particular, for making the arrangements that allow this event to go ahead.
Shortly after the notification of venue change was sent to all the entrants, the PA weer advised that the local council, Rhondda Cynon Taf, had introduced a more rigid covid requirement to ensure face-covering were to be worn in any public indoor space. This necessitate another communication to ensure everyone was aware of these restrictions..
A total of 10 teams entered – not the best number for a competition – so the playing format followed one used previously, with teams divided into 2 pools of 5, with play following a round-robin pithing the group and teams in each pool that had a bye, playing the “bye-team” from the other pool, all played using timed games. .
Following the completion of the pool games, the top-2 sides from each pool were drawn into semi-finals to play full-length (i.e. untimed) games, so Winner-Pool-A v Runner-Up-Pool-B and Winner-Pool-B v Runner-Up-Pool-A.
The Semi- Finals started at 4pm, with Richard Harris & Kon Tomczyk playing Gareth & Stewart Spencer and Ian Bailey & Jean-Yves Robic playing father-&-son pairing, Huw & Matthew Morris.
Bailey & Robic dominated their semi, winning 13-3, whilst Harris & Tomczyk had to work hard for their victory, finally closing it out 13-11.
After a brief pause, the final got underway at 5pm, with Harris & Tomczyk making the best of starts by taking 5 points on the first end. Bailey & Robic clawed a couple back before Harris & Tomczyk pulled ahead again. But they were unable to close the game out, allowing Bailey & Robic to drag their way back to level the scores at 10-10, before easing ahead to 11-10 and finally coming out as victors 13-10 and claiming the title.
Once again, the pistes played their part, but there was still some fine and accurate play in the final.
Huge congratulations to our 2020 National Doubles for Men champions, and, once again, our thanks to Pontyclun PC and Pontyclun RFC for hosting the event in a safe and sporting way.
Standings after Pool Stages:
Pool A
Pool B
1
Richard Harris & Kon Tomczyk
1
Ian Bailey & Jean-Yves Robic
2
Hugh Morris & Matthew Morris
2
Gareth Spencer & Stewart Spencer
3
Bernard Adshead & Roger Griffin
3
Jake Caston & Bob Pugh
4
John Attfield & Derek Jones
4
Roger Green & Sean Smith
5
Colin Sweet & Basil White
5
Jeremy Clare & Len Field
Next-up is the National Precision Shooting for Women & Men, currently scheduled for September 27th – venue still to be confirmed.
WPA National Doubles: Men 2020 Winners: Jean-Yves Robic & Ian Bailey
WPA National Doubles: Men 2020 Runners-Up: Kon Tomczyk & Richard Harris
WPA NATIONAL DOUBLES – MEN – CHANGE OF VENUE & FORMAT OF PLAY
Please note that due to circumstances outside the WPA’s control, we have been forced into a last-minute change of venue.
The competition will now be held at Pontyclun RFC.
Please also note that with immediate effect RCT County Borough Council have imposed the wearing of 3-layer face coverings where it is safe to do so, whilst in work, in supermarkets and other indoor or crowded public spaces.
Therefore, please ensure you have the appropriate face-overing with you for using the clubhouse and/or any shops when purchasing food/drinks, etc.
Please check with your playing partner to confirm that they are aware of this change.
My apologies for any inconvenience caused and my thanks for your patience and cooperation.
Bob Pugh National President.
Further update:
The Director of Development has asked me to publish the following:
PLAYING FORMAT
Sunday’s playing format will replicate one previously used:
2 x Pools of 5 Teams (drawn at random).
Each pool will play a round-robin (byes will be played against the opposite pool team, e.g. the Team in Pool A with a bye will play the Team in Pool B with a bye in the same round).
All Pool games will be timed at 50mins plus 1-end. This will allow time in between rounds to clean scoreboards and circles.
After the Pool rounds, the top-2 Teams in each Pool will progress to Semi-Finals (Winner Pool A v R-U Pool B & Winner Pool B v R-U Pool A). These games MAY be timed – depending on time at their start.
The winners of the Semi Finals will progress to the Final, with the runners-up playing 3/4 play-off. These games will NOT be timed.
The first National competition was finally held on Sunday 6th September at Pontyclun PC’s base at Pontyclun RFC.
It seemed like a very long time since the last WPA competition was held, way back in March, when the President’s Cup was held at the Wheatsheaf Inn.
After all the uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and after the relaxation of the lockdown restrictions imposed by the Welsh Government, the WPA finally kicked its season into play, when 6 teams entered the National Doubles for Women.
A trial doubles competition had been held at Pontyclun and the lessons learned were used as the basis of the play for this competition.
For the vast majority of the players, this was their first competitive outing of the year, and a number of the teams were new to each other having not played together previously, as well as a few more familiar pairings. The competition was played under the WPA’s published guidelines, including the regulation 2m social-distancing requirements. These included enhanced hygiene, recording of everybody’s temperature, recording of personal contact details for compliance with the Welsh Government’s Track, Trace, Protect programme, 30-person-limit within the “activity bubble” and full 2m social distancing.
With 6 teams entered, the “round-robin” format was adopted so every team played the other 5.
September being what it is, we experienced hot sun, chilly winds, light rain – often all within a few minutes!
The pistes at Pontyclun are renowned for their unforgiving nature, but this didn’t deter any of the teams and the quality of play overall was of a very high standard. This was evident by the start of Round 5 where, despite one team having built an unassailable lead, 4 of the remaining teams were in with a chance of the runners-up spot.
This finally went to the “locals’, Kath Attfield (justifying her award of Most Improved Player of 2019) and Marie Jones, who won 3 of their games – 2 of which were extremely tense finishes of 13-12 & 13-11.
The honours of the day, with a clean-sweep of 5 wins out of 5 matches went to the Monkstone PC-based pairing of Gill Clarke and Gill Greenwell.
“The Gills'” victory is even more remarkable because, not only was it their first competitive pairing, it was Gill Greenwell’s first National competition, it was her first visit to Pontyclun and she only started playing pétanque in June of 2019.
FInal Standings:
Position
1
Gill Clarke & Gill Greenwell
2
Kath Attfield & Marie Jones
3
Chris McCaddon & Karen Robbins
4
Gemma Foster & Tansy Mayfield
5
Trudie Merry & Michelle Spencer
6
Vickie Adshead & Jayne Dunn
Huge congratulations to our 2020 National Doubles for Women champions, and our thanks to Pontyclun PC and Pontyclun RFC for hosting the event in a safe and sporting way.
WPA National Doubles: Women 2020 Champions: Gill Clark & Gill Greenwell
WPA National Doubles: Women 2020 Runners-Up: Kath Attfield & Marie Jones
Congratulations to Ray Williams (Caerleon RFC PC) and Jackie Harris who tied the knot and married on Tuesday 1st September.
Best wishes for the future.
We now feel in a position to resume a number of National Competitions.
As a result, we have now published an updated Playing Calendar on the WPA Website.
Earlier this week, we wrote to all Club Contacts asking if they could host any events and at the time of publication we are still awaiting some responses. As a result, all events are currently awaiting confirmation of Venue, so these will be updated as we know them.
ALL EVENTS WILL BE PLAYED UNDER THE WPA-PUBLISHED COVID GUIDELINES.
Please note that we have added an alternative arrangement for paying Competition Entries to the drop-down list in the on-line entry form. We now have the capability of paying “on the day” by card – either via chip & PIN or (preferably) via Contactless payment (including Apple & Google Pay). This will help us to minimise the amount of cash we need to handle – and with this in mind, we would ask that if you have to pay with cash on the day of the event, please make sure you have the correct money. NO CASH CHANGE WILL BE GIVEN.
The Cut-Off for each Competition will be 7 days before the date of the event. As you will know, this has always been the case, but due to the need to plan the piste-layouts and draw, we need to have the numbers of entries finalised in advance to enable this to happen. I would, therefore, ask you to not delay entering.
You will also see that we have separated most events into Women & Men’s events as this will help us with managing the event under the current COVID regulations. In addition, we have added 2 “qualifying” dates for the Men’s Doubles – this may be reduced to just the Sunday if entries permit.
If these events prove successful, and subject to further changes with the WG COVID Regulations, we hope to add further events in the coming weeks.
We hope you feel comfortable enough to consider entering these events and we look forward to welcoming you back and seeing you on the piste.
I hope you and you families are continuing to stay safe and well.
In an effort to return to some competitive play, a “trial” event was held last Sunday, 16th August, with 8 doubles playing in accordance with the WPA’s published guidance.
We received some invaluable feedback both on the day and subsequently, for which we are very grateful.
The EC met yesterday and reviewed the outcome of this trial event. We have waited until today to publish our findings and update our Guidelines in order to see if the Welsh Government’s latest review contained anything that may affect our decisions (for example, we are aware that the WSA had submitted a recommendation to the WG to increase the size of organised outdoor gatherings, and reduce the 2m social-distancing regulation to 1m+).
As a result of our findings and the subsequent discussions, we have decided that we are happy to allow Clubs to make use of all their pistes PROVIDED they have sufficient space at the edges and ends of their playing area to establish “safe havens”, where players can stand while their opponents are playing. Please note, however, that if there is insufficient space to create these “safe havens”, the current guidance which only permits play on every-other piste MUST be retained.
Our Guidelines for Clubs have been updated to reflect this, and contain an explanatory diagram, and can be found on our COVID-19 Webpage.
The Executive has contacted all Clubs to ask for their availability to host a number of National events and will be publishing a Calendar in the very near future.
In the meantime, we appreciate your ongoing patience, and hope you and your families stay healthy.
The 1st WPOC World Pétanque Offline Cup organised by the FIPJP.
The preliminary phase of the WPOC has finished and the qualifying results are out for the WPOC 2020 Championships.
Three WPA players who decided to enter to represent Wales had limited time to produce the necessary video for the qualifying sessions.
Derek Jones got his precision shooting and parthian shooting (trick shot) completed on Sunday 3rd August afternoon while Gareth and Michelle Spencer completed their precision shooting just before the deadline of Monday 4th August afternoon.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time for Gareth and Michelle to produce a qualifying parthian shooting video before the 4pm deadline.
Despite the lack of time the results from the players exceeded any expectation, results as below:
Men’s Parthian shooting Derek Jones – Finalist top 8 (Qualified 5th)
Women’s Shooting Michelle Spencer – 27th Top Female European player
Men’s Shooting Derek Jones – 13th Top Male European player
Gareth Spencer – 32nd Second European player
Congratulations to all players an excellent performance.
Derek has now performed another parthian shot for the final phase and this is currently being assessed by the five judges.
I hope you and you families are staying safe and well.
Following our attendance of the Welsh Sports Association (WSA) call on Tuesday morning the EC met on Wednesday 5th August.
Full details of the Guidelines, along with the WG FAQ document and the UK Government’s advice on cleaning in non-healthcare situations can be found on the WPA’s COVID-19 Advice and Information page here.
As a result of studying the relevant sections of the WG Guidelines, we have updated our own guidelines, which are also published on the above page.
To emphasise a number of points:
As well as outdoor gatherings of UP-TO 30 people taking place for “organised and supervised” activities, the WG now permits outdoor gatherings of up-to 30 people for social purposes. Please be aware that these social gatherings MUST still adhere to the 2m social-distancing instructions.
The WSA & WG have confirmed that this “social” gathering can be applied to spectators, and is in addition to the organised gathering of people taking part in a sporting activity:
“Re organised outdoor events, if there are people who are socially distant from the field of play – and from each other – and their presence doesn’t obstruct or interfere with the safety arrangements planned by the organisers for the event, then they would not count towards the 30 total. Here is what our guidance says on that point:
Spectators
Supporters and other spectators should be limited at this stage to only those persons who need to attend, e.g. parents or guardians of children who require their attendance for health or safeguarding reasons. All spectators are to remain socially and physically distanced from each other and from the area of play whilst attending events, including accessing and leaving the venue, use of any facilities and whilst watching game play.
Anyone on the area of play, or closer to it than social distancing rules would permit, will count towards the total number people considered to the gathered for the organised outdoor activity, where a limit of no more than 30 persons applies.“
The WPA has decided that spectators should still be discouraged from attending any organised event, but should any bystanders be present, they MUST be a minimum of 2m from the edge of the playing area. Should an organised event take place at an “open” area, the organisers should make sure a barrier or other marker is in place at least 2m from the edge of the playing area.
The Executive also moved to draft an updated playing calendar with a limited number of events which will be further refined and published in the near future.
In the meantime, we appreciate your ongoing patience, and hope you and your families stay healthy.
