Brilliant piece of marketing we can all use

Every Petanque website should link to this YouTube video. If you want to entice people to come along and give Petanque a go - this clip will do it. It is a brilliant piece of marketing we can all use!

All of NZ Under One Roof

For some time now I have been wondering about how Petanque players from overseas research our game here in NZ before they arrive. I believe it would help to have a simple page with all relevant details on it. It should help with getting players from other parts of the world to play some games with the locals (that's a "Win Win"). I have created such a page and would appreciate your feedback. If something does not work for you, let me know what browser, and or device you are using. You'll find the page here. Thanks in advance for your feedback. -Tom.

Let us know what you'd like

Some time ago I was surprised to see meat-packs and lots of alcohol as tournament prizes. Is this what people want? Why not ask them. Thanks for providing your input:

Trans Tasman 2013 Report by Dirk Winne

I have done a "copy and paste" of this excellent report, as some users have difficulties opening MS word documents. Some can't open documents with the .docx extension, but are ok with the .doc extension. As you can see Microsoft has created a bit of a minefield for us - no surprises there. When working in the digital space, we need to take all users into account - my job coming through ;-) -Tom.

PS. This report is also published as text on our Facebook page PATONKAZ, but not everyone has or wants a FB account - if you do not have an account, you can't see the report there. Computers are so much fun :-)

Trans Tasman 2013

Lake Macquarie NSW

Firstly an apology. I had been expecting official results from Australia that would confirm the final scores. As far as I know we have not received these so please be aware that any figures are unconfirmed.

Our annual match with our Australian neighbours is always an eagerly anticipated clash. Although New Zealand has had the wood on them over the past six years this could easily change.

This year for the first time we had an Open Team, a Seniors Team and a Junior Team. As many of you are aware it has not been easy enticing younger players into our game despite the efforts of many people over the years. We are hoping that the incentive of National Representation assists with this goal. While on this subject, I would like to thank the regional associations that supported our Juniors. Your demonstration of support was appreciated and repaid, if not by results, certainly by the attitude and effort that our young players took into the games.

Many players travelled independently and either arrived early or added on days to their weekend of petanque. The expectation was that players would be in Lake Macquarie for a Thursday afternoon practice.

Unfortunately some players in Wellington had obviously offended the weather gods and evening fog in the capital meant that the Thursday morning flight was cancelled. Fortunately all the affected players and supporters were able to rebook on flights to get them to the tournament on time. You can imagine the anxiety this caused for players, some of whom this was their first international event, and the coaches. This disrupted travel only really impacted on the Seniors and the Open Women, however a slight tweaking of combinations meant all was well.

We had been told that the Lake Macquarie pistes were rather benign, but we arrived to discover three distinct surfaces. Half of the pistes were covered with thickly covered with small stones requiring players to put some height into their pointing and shooters needed to hit boule to boule to make a difference.

The second surface was a hard base with a smattering of loose stone. Identifying and hitting your landing spot was the key to success on this surface and the third terrain was a hard, dry flat surface with no covering. The key to being successful on this terrain was being able judge the weight of your boule. Most players used low rolling pointing shots. This was arguably the most difficult terrain to play on.

The tournament was organised in such a way that the teams were drawn to play on different terrains throughout the weekend. This meant constantly having to adjust your style to suit the terrain.

The Tournament is run in three different sections; Open, Seniors and Juniors. Apart from the Juniors, the teams are six males and six females. We play single gender triples and doubles on the first day and single gender triples and mixed doubles on the second day.

From this point I will concentrate on the Open section as I have little information, and I cannot attest to the accuracy of the information I have gleaned.

After the first two rounds of triples the women were 4 – 0 and the men were 0 – 4.

Even scoring going into the doubles round. The Australians appeared to come out all firing in the doubles, however this was not matched on the scoreboard with the New Zealand team slightly shading the Australians by 10 games to 8. Both the Men’s and the women’s team had won 5 games to 4.

A slender 4 point lead was taken into day two of the competition by the NZ open team.

The competition was wide open as we started the second day with another two games of triples. We knew we had the Aussies a bit rattled as they changed their team combinations in an effort to peg us back. It worked to some extent in the women’s section but our men rose to the challenge and picked up a couple of the games.

The men split their games 2 -2 with the Aussies while the women still maintained a dominant position with a 3 – 1 outcome.

We entered the mixed doubles section of the tournament with a 10 point lead. With 36 points still in hand this could be a little like a lottery. While Andre and I had spent time working on the combinations to match player ability and temperament the reality was that only one of our combinations had played together before.

Call it a stroke of coaching and selection genius if you like but the Kiwi team won this section convincingly with a 14 - 4 game result. Our teams performed outstandingly. To quote Eric Doublet – the number one mens’ player for Australia after his mixed doubles team had just been beaten by Joanne and Dez 13 -12 “ Your team are too good”. I must add that Joanne and Dez turned around a 3 – 12 deficit to take this game.

The final result for the open section was a convincing 78 – 42 victory to make it six in a row for the Kiwis

All of the games were timed, 1 hour and two ends. This occasionally required us to thing differently in terms of strategy and tactics.

At times it came down to defending a lead. I recall one particular end of the women’s game the Kiwis were leading 9- 6, holding one and the Aussies were out of boule the position the Aussies defending boule were in meant that the Kiwis took 1 point even though they had five boule in hand. A 10 – 6 lead is easier to defend than a 9 – 7.

Conversely we had ends where we were required to score heavily and needed to attack. I recall one such end where Barbara and Sharon were attempting to score 4 to tie the game on a final end. Five shots were required, every boule connecting but unfortunately we were not always able to move the boule far enough to hold the point. Luckily we were in a dominant position as far as the match was concerned as it allowed us the freedom to attempt some very technical and difficult shots.

While all this was going on the Seniors were still battling away and in this epic struggle it was coming down to the result of the last game. A win to the Aussies would result in tied scores and a win to the Aussies on points differential a win to NZ would give us an outright, if somewhat slender victory. 62 - 58

The Australians had their opportunities to close this game out on the last end however a couple of loose boules handed us the victory.

The NZ Juniors were always going to be battling against a very talented, and experienced group of Juniors from Australia. From what I saw our Juniors never gave up even though their backs were to the wall. They were eventually defeated 29 – 9 but these kids performed creditably and stood up to the challenge. They deserved their Black Shirt and did NZ Petanque  proud. We need to do all we can to encourage and retain these juniors.

It may appear that this was a relatively easy victory but the scores alone do not convey the intense competition of this tournament. Many of the games were tight and the points were ground out, end after end.

As a coach and PNZ President I am incredibly proud of the way our Petanque community was represented in Australia, the players, coaches and officials, and our supporters. It was a victory for us all

Dirk Winne 

Trans Tasman Petanque

I will collect what I can from FB for those who do not use FB. Hopefully it will provide an interesting timeline of events and stories all on one page.

20/05/13 "Michael Peacock

The mighty Boule Blacks received glowing praise tonight on Seven Sharp. It was even suggested that Petanque should be our new national sport. How good is that ?"

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19/05/13 "Sarah Jane Wright

TT - we go into day 2 about even with the Aussies, it's anyone's game at this stage. The open are about even the seniors are up and the youth down. Just about to leave for day 2. Sorry for the brief report but I am not sure of all the scores cause I went shopping and hair my hair done during the games. Will report later today. LETS GET READY TO RUMBLE !"

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"Sarah Jane Wright

We are here! Well some of us, Claire and Christine r stuck in welly, fingers crossed they r on the flight tommorow! What a trip, plane, train, bus, walk and taxi all in 1 day. 5pm and ready 4 bed."
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Welcome PetanqueTube

We have a new Petanque website - PetanqueTube. This is an English language website dealing with petanque videos and sharing (contributing) of videos. What I like about this new website is that we no longer have to go to these ghastly French websites with all their garish and intrusive advertising flying in your face (cyber littering) - God knows we have suffered. 

I will retweet all their relevant Tweets whenever I can. I hope other sites will put their support behind this new initiative and provide a link to it. By sharing and linking we promote our sport.


"PetanqueTube.com is site born from the idea of creating a platform that connects players around the world. PetanqueTube is an non profite video community, run by passionate petanque players. You can share your petanque videos and watch others. Site has a YouTube integration what makes uploading really simple. If you have your video already uploaded to YouTube then you can simply submit your video with just one click http://www.petanquetube.com 

Kind regards from PetanqueTube team."

USE OF SINGLES AS A SELECTION TOOL

Selection Process 2013

USE OF SINGLES AS A SELECTION TOOL

Background

Singles games occupied almost the entire first day of the process in 2012. Feedback from the players was that this was overkill and of limited value. In a response to this feedback the Board stated that it would not use singles again.

Process

As the person in charge of selection I take responsibility for the use of singles again in 2013. I was remiss in not actually thoroughly checking the feedback.

Singles were not used as extensively as in the previous year. In 2013 they were only used as part of the Senior Men’s process and the Open Women. Neither group played more than 4 singles games over the weekend.

Singles were used to give the selectors more information, as well as giving players the opportunity to play each other head to head. In the Senior Men the games were not scored but the results were recorded. This enabled us to rank the players. It also gave  the selectors the opportunity to discuss aspects of players performance thoroughly.

In regard to the Open Women, the players played 3 marked games. The competition was extremely close and intense. The data gathered from the singles games contributed to the final selection decision.

The selectors role is to gather as much information as possible to make an informed decision. The use of singles was a valuable exercise in both the Seniors and the women. I believe it gave players another opportunity to press their case for selection. The data was considered alongside all the other information available to us.

I believe that my fellow selectors will endorse the organisation and structure of the selection camps as rigorous and fair on all participants. If any player thought that they were disadvantaged by the addition of the singles games I would be interested in hearing from them.

Dirk Winnie

PNZ Board Member with responsibility for Selection

A new NZ Petanque FB page

Nice to see another Facebook site: HBC Petanque Club. Please if you have a FB account, go and write something to welcome HBC to our online petanque community. 

I have to declare I am not a FB fan - I prefer Google+. I have however made a permanent link to the HBC Petanque Club Facebook page (see links column on right). I will also endeavour to promote this initiative via our popular Twitter page. Go well with this project!