Final Shoot Report (Click thumbnails for full image):

Mid Wales Shooting Centre held the Inter Counties Skeet Final on the 15th April and they got everything right.....the welcome, the targets, the referees and this year.........even the weather!

It was great to see Gwent putting a team in and that bought us up to six counties competing.  Shame we had no shooters from Mid Glamorgan taking up the challenge this year though !

The first round of 25 saw 9 shooters all putting in straights, 4 of them from Dyfed, 2 from West Glamorgan and Gwynedd and finally 1 from Gwent.  Dyfed shooters were already beginning to think that they were easily going to take the title away from last years winners 'Clwyd'.

It was the second round that things started to get a little hotter, literally and metaphorically.  Powys shooters put in 4 straight rounds courtesy of Pete Humphries, Dorian Evans (who was now on a 50ex50),Terry Merrick and R Jones with West Glamorgan chasing closely behind with Huw Powell, Keith Davies and Peter Lucas all going straight as well.  Gwent co-ordinator David Daley put a straight in and also K.Hill from Gwynedd.  Dyfed struggled with just 1 straight coming from Lyndon Lomax. There would have been a 50 straight for Dyfed if Angie Goodman hadn't dropped low 7 on the pair and had to make do with a 49ex50.

So after 2 rounds it was extremely close between Dyfed and Powys with just one clay separating them, 464 to 463 and West Glamorgan 9 clays in front of Gwynedd on 445 to 436. Clwyd and Gwent were trailing behind.

The 3rd and 4th rounds saw some pretty fantastic shooting by the County shooters with straights coming in thick and fast.  Firstly, Tom Hayes from Clwyd straightened his last 50 as did Del Davies from Dyfed and Pete Humphries from Powys.  It was becoming clear that it was going to be very close at the end and it was !

Some tremendous shooting by Pete Humphries and Dorian Evans for Powys (both finishing on 99ex100) just wasn't enough for Powys to pip Dyfed at the post. Powys lost out to Dyfed by just 2 clays and Dyfed were crowned county champions for 2007 !
Here is one of Dyfed's very successful squads:

And here are all the members of the victorious Dyfed team:

Positions had changed lower down as well, with West Glamorgan dropping down from 3rd place after 50 to 5th at the end, swapping with Clwyd who moved up from 5th to 3rd. Gwent put in a gallant effort in this their first County Final in a long time and hopefully those shooters enjoyed themselves enough to go back to recruit and encourage shooters to take part next year.

With the team events over, it now came down to sorting out some individual high guns.

Pete Humphries and Dorian Evans - both on 99ex100, started their shoot-offs for overall High Gun and after one round they were still level on 22 a piece so they went to pairs on 4.  Even then it went on for several pairs before Pete let one get away giving Dorian the overall High Gun trophy.  Click the thumbnail below to see the both shooters shooting off for the high gun:

The Captains cup this year went to Huw Evans (Clwyd) after a shoot-off with Powys shooter -  Terry Merrick.

The Veterans shield this year was a little special and sad at the same time.  The trophy had been donated by Chris Potters widow - Gwen.  Chris was a skeet shooter through and through and we all miss him in Dyfed and Wales and whilst it would have been nice for the new shield to return to Dyfed, it was Tom Hayes (Clwyd) who had the honour of looking after it for the first year.

Dyfed did take silverware back with them in the form of Junior High Gun "Maverick Sherman" (n/c), Ladies High Gun "Angie Goodman", Veterans Team "Lyndon Lomax" and "Graham Parish", and Ladies Team "Carol Francis" and "Angie Goodman".  We all recommend the Dyfed team should buy some silver polish in bulk after this years performance and the quantity of trophies won !

The Junior Team shield went to Powys thanks to "Mike Creswell" and "Barry Griffiths".

A thumbnail of all the individual winners gathered together is shown below, click on it for more detail:

Many congratulations to all the new caps, it'll be great to see you all next year as well.

This really was a great day out for shooters and not just Skeet shooters - so lets all try and encourage more to come along to the County qualifiers next year.

Angie Goodman nearly damaged her trigger finger during the event as a result of taking loads of photographs, browse through our thumbnail gallery by clicking the camera below to see if she managed to capture you at the event !

Many thanks go to the Williams family and all the staff and referees that helped out on that day and also to all the County Co-ordinators who got their teams there.

Results Summary:

Type	Result
Winning County	Dyfed  840
Runners Up	Powys  838
3rd Place	Clwyd  806
4th Place	Gwynedd 800
5th Place	West Glam  797
6th Place	Gwent  751
Overall High Gun	Dorain Evans (Powys)  99 (after shoot off)
Captains High Gun	Huw Evans (Clwyd)  95 (after shoot off)
Ladies High Gun	Angie Goodman (Dyfed)  93
Veterans High Gun	Tom Hayes (Clwyd)  96
Junior High Gun	Maverick Sherman (Dyfed)  88
Ladies Team	Dyfed (Carol Francis and Angie Goodman)
Veterans Team	Dyfed (Lyndon Lomax & Graham Parish)
Junior Team	Powys (Mike Creswell & Barry Griffiths)