Sport
10 August, 2026
Full moon antics grip competition
The first of the major capitulations was to take place in the Parisian quarter of town where the Farmers’ Arms One team hosted the previously-untarnished warriors of the number Two team from the Country Club.
THE penultimate round of the 2026 season of the Inter-Hotels Pool Competition was played last Wednesday - the eve of a full moon known as a Buck and the supposed legendary lunacy that is associated with such an event appears to have permeated the evening’s three venues where there were to be two remarkable upsets and one near-upset.
The first of the major capitulations was to take place in the Parisian quarter of town where the Farmers’ Arms One team hosted the previously-untarnished warriors of the number Two team from the Country Club.
The C2 were to be without their fearless leader, Harley Durward, as too were to be the home side but the Farmers’ boys showed that they were in no mood for niceties when they advanced to a four games to one lead at the top of the second round after Ned Gorrie had dispatched Simon Elliott.
Earlier, in the first round, Geoff Watts and Shane Cross had opened their accounts against Grant Doyle and Will Jackson while Hayden Perry was to be their only failure, having gone under to Jake Male.
The seemingly somnolent Club Two combatants awoke from the slumber halfway through the second round however as Grant fought back to square his match with Geoff and Jake was to eliminate Hayden but Shane then pulled off a Ben Carroll-like coup to topple Will, giving his side a five games to three majority with just one singles encounter remaining.
It was now up to Grant to keep his team’s unblemished record alive and in a tight, black-ball game against the battered Batlow battler he was able to achieve this.
He then partnered up with Jake in the first of the doubles but the pairing of Ned and Hayden were to triumph, thereby inflicting upon the Rollers and Floggers their first subjugation for the season, eventually triumphing by six games to five.
The inferred insanity was to reach its peak in their home among the gum trees when the Country Club’s number One side hosted the basement battlers, the Farmers’ Arms Two.
They were to be without their charming captain, Alayne Cunningham, who had been injured in a dog walking accident and we wish her well in her recovery but they got off to a flying start with the Amazon’s Bianca Carroll, Zoe Cunningham and consort Jack Hodges each winning their opening frames against Paul Mullins, Dan Harkin and Des Moulday while Luke Pole had been their only failure, losing to Troy Shields. Paul momentarily eased the haemorrhaging at the top of the second round by tying his match with Bianca but the Amazons were soon back on track as Luke levelled his encounter with Troy and Zoe relegated Dan to the bar.
Desperate Des was to lead a Mean Machine resurgence by squaring his battle with Jack then at the top of the third round Paul and Troy dismissed their respective opponents but Des had an attack of the Colliwobbles, thereby surrendering his match to Jack.
With the fired-up Farmers leading the match by six games to five and with just the doubles to be contested it was time to put the boys with the white coats and straight-jackets on stand-by as the perceived lunar lunacy made its insidious entrance to the match.
Heckle and Jeckle were paired up against Bianca and Luke but, with both of the talking magpies dreaming of a black-and-white Christmas it was to be Heckle who was to perform something that I thought was impossible for a Magpie supporter and that was to have a brain fade (draw your own conclusions as to why I think this way).
For reasons known only to himself he deliberately potted one of their opponent’s balls which is an automatic loss of frame. This inexplicable disaster not only cost them the game but also the match with all and sundry and the local wildlife startled by a torrent of verbal abuse from his partner Jeckle.
When the cue dust had settled the Meanies recovered to take the final doubles but the Amazons marched away with the points by seven games to six with the Meanies doing their best to discourage a devastated Des from committing hare-kari.
The residents of Logan and the Avoca Forest area could have been forgiven for thinking that the fabled min-min lights of the outback Queensland town of Boulia had migrated to their location when three spectral images of de-dacked derrieres appeared in the night sky at various intervals during the RSL team’s visit to the Pub in the Scrub to do battle with their pool team.
The Loganites began well, shooting to a three games to one lead at the end of the first round with Ben Pell, Shaun McNaulty and Jacob Vanrenen each successful against Mitch Phillips, Kyle Postlethwaite and Dave Russ respectively while Kyle Postlethwaite had flown the RSL guidon against Stephen Rodger with him being the evening’s first victim of a seven-baller.
The Diggers fought back in the second round as Mitch and Sam squared their encounters with Ben and Shaun with Shaun being the second one on the wrong end of a seven-baller but Stephen had recovered sufficiently from his ignominy to lead the counter-attack and square his match with Kyle while Jacob went on to polish off Dave.
The final round began disastrously for the Diggers’ captain when he became the brightest posterior presentation to the night sky in his final encounter with Ben but the Postlethwaite siblings each closed out their matches to leave the rattled RSL trailing by five games to six the end of the singles encounters.
They then went on to win both doubles to get out of the stockade by seven games to six.
LADDER
Country Club Two 48
RSL 44
Country Club One 32
Farmers’ Arms One 28
Logan 16
Sporting Club 8
Farmers’ Arms Two 8
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