The National Triples Championship for Men was recently held at the Monkstone Petanque Club in ideal conditions. Twelve teams took part, including two women’s teams that were happy to be included in the competition as the Women’s competition was cancelled due to the lack of entries.

Qualification Round.

The qualification round comprised three encounters, after which the teams were ranked 1 to 12. Only one team won all their qualification encounters to finish in top spot, the Vale team of Jean-Yves Robic, Ian Bailey and Len Field. Four teams finished with two wins, and the remainder had one win.

The top eight teams progressed to the National Championship, while the remaining four played in a plate competition.

Championship.

The results of the quarter-finals saw the top four-placed teams win to progress to the semi-finals, where the top two seeded teams, from the Vale PC (Robic, Bailey and Field) and Monkstone PC (Bernard Adshead, Roger Griffin and Peredur John), won their encounters to face each other in the final to compete for the 2025 National Triples Championship.

The losing semi-finalists were the Monkstone PC team of Tony Smith, Elijah Jeffers and Sean Smith, who lost against the Vale 13/4 and Phil Freegard, Rob Glaves and Phil Ivins, who lost out to the Monkstone finalists 13/8.

The initial stage of the final saw the Monkstone team take an early lead over the Vale. However, the Vale team began to claw back to get into contention and with ends being won by both teams, the Vale team finally won the final 13/8, and took the title of Men’s Triple Champions for 2025.

Congratulations to the team of Kym Jeffrey, Danielle Horrigan and Amy Vaughan from the Twyn-y-Ffwrd PC, who finished 8th in the qualification and strongly opposed the Vale team, losing 13/9.

2025 Finalists
2025 National Triples Champions: Len Field, Ian Bailey and Jean-Yves Robic – Vale Petanque Club.	Runners-up: Roger Griffin, Bernard Adshead and Peredur John – Monkstone Petanque Club.

Plate.

The four remaining teams played a Plate semi-final. The first semi-final was between James Fackrell, Cai Jones and Garry Griffiths from the Twyn-y-Ffwrd PC and the women’s team of Ann Marie Sheridan, Vanessa Jones and Vickie Adshead from the Monkstone PC unfortunately, they were unable to progress to the Plate final.

The second semi-final was between Gareth Coombes, Paul Mayfield, Kon Tomczyk and David Languerand from Caerleon RFC PC, Alex Skibinski, Claude Le Razavet, and Roger Green from the Monkstone PC. Either team could have won this encounter as it was a hard-fought match. However, the Monkstone team won 13/12 to reach the final.

After a hard-fought Plate semi-final, the Monkstone team of Alex Skibinski, Claude Le Razavet, and Roger Green overcame the Twyn-y-Ffwrd PC team of James Fackrell, Cai Jones and Garry Griffiths 13/2.

Plate Winners: Alex Skibinski, Roger Green and Claude Le Razavet – Monkstone Petanque Club.	Runner-up: James Fackrell, Cai Jones and Garry Griffiths – Twyn-y-Ffwrd Petanque Club.

Thank you to everyone who entered the Championship, and many thanks to the Members and Committee of the Monkstone Petanque Club for their hospitality whilst hosting the event.