THE MAC CONTINUED
England 11 New Zealand 7 Fittingly for a tournament with many close scores, the deciding game was +1. All unfinished matches are abandoned, the England celebrations commence. In the third place match, USA beat Australia 17-4, their biggest ever MacRobertson Shield test win. Thanks to a huge effort from Alison Maugham, Stephen Allen, and a small army of other volunteers, more matches were streamed live on YouTube, with audio commentary, than ever before. So do check out the Croquet England YouTube channel, where the recordings remain for posterity. And for full results of all games, plus records of live text commentary from some games, visit croquetscores.com.
1600: Clarke wins game 2 vs Good +26, and the match. England 9 New Zealand 7 1635: Death and Avery on finishing turns. That would be enough. 1643: Patel misses 18-yarder. Fordyce wins game 2 +3, match score is 1-1. 1645: Avery completes triple peel, wins match 2-0. England 10 New Zealand 7 All attention is now on lawn 2. At this point, if you don’t already know the result (or even if you do), I recommend looking up the live coverage that can still be found on YouTube, so you can see for yourself what happened, before reading on. 1647: Death fails penult. Penult and rover v McCorkindale 4- back and peg. McCorkindale hits a 6-yarder, sets up finishing chance. 1703: McCorkindale misses peg out from 4 yards. Blue finishes one foot in from middle of west boundary. Black is pegged out. Rover and rover v peg alone. 1705: Death Yellow hits Red (5 yds). Takes off to Blue. Stops it toward 2nd corner. Lays up near 4th corner with a 3-yard rush vaguely pointing at rover. McCorkindale shoots at peg. Misses. Death Yellow hits Blue, take off to Red gives a rush pointing west. Red is cut 1yd NE of hoop 1. An optional approach sends Red 3yds SW of hoop 2. Yellow runs rover to the boundary, then goes off west boundary 5yds S of 2nd corner. 1715: McCorkindale’s Blue is now 10yds north of 4th corner. He shoots at the peg. Misses. Death Red hits Blue, to applause. Iit was only a 3-yarder but the crowd is excited! Death now has to take off to Yellow which is 4yds north. The crowd is alarmed as Red turns left toward the end of its journey. But all is well. Death rushes to 3yds NNW of rover. Poor approach, later attributed to an uphill lie. 5-foot hoop, run off lawn. Relieved applause. The return “rush” is about 3 yards. Death cuts it 4yds west of the peg. Which is good news as he’s going away from McCorkindale’s ball. Doesn’t spend long lining it up but if it’s right, it’s right… 1724: Death wins and secures the MacRobertson Shield for England.
MACROBERTSON SHIELD TEAM THANKS
The England team in the MacRobertson Shield would like to record our thanks to all four clubs and the army of people who made the event possible and such a success. All of you, whether involved in lawn preparation, mowing or hoop setting, in clubhouses for facilities, lunches, teas or drinks, streaming, scoring and commentating, management, refereeing or just cheering us on, helped make the event a great experience. Samir Patel, England Team Captain Team England 2026 Sponsored by Alliance Witan
www.croquetengland.org.uk | 9
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