The schedule this time around sees us Air Riflers in action very early on. It's usually a Tuesday or so before we have the team match, but here it's the first day of competition on the Sunday, so no time to laze around!
The team match is one of those beasts that can be very strange. To be successful you have to have two only reasonable shooters, but both of you have to shoot reasonably too...AND simultaneously! There's little room for one of you to have an off day, but at the same time it's often one of your best chances to succeed and get a pleasing result. As I said...a strange beast!
Anyway, we were going into this having been training well at home, and with me hoping that the previous night's tweaking and adjusting saw me with a rifle that would make it through the match without letting me down - a mixed feeling really.
I can only speak for myself here, but it was an amazing match in some ways. After the first few dry shots in prep time I'd forgotten about the trigger being possibly dodgy, it was that good. I felt little in the way of nerves, which was excellent news, but the shooting wasn't sparkling. I think it was that although I wasn't feeling particularly nervous, I didn't manage to get the relaxation in the position that I really should have had, so the hold was a little active and as a result some of those them thare bulls got away! End result for me was a slightly below par 569.
The all important part of this though is that you shoot with your team mate, and Peter is the man that matters in this case. He's made really good progress over the last months in training at home and was starting to knock on the door of the sort of scores that might get qualification results for the next Commonwealth Games - yes, you heard me! Peter's been out of the circuit a while though, and this was to be his comeback comp, and what a one to do it on. It's a hard comp in many ways, but one of the most obvious is the amount of publicity and hype it gets back home. It creates a sort of aura around it and the associated pressure pot environment. Peter is so hungry to do well though, and sometimes so that it hurts him, and I think this is what happened here. He was so keen to do well and to not let his buddy down, which is exactly what should happen, but I think it created a fine line between being a genius and burning up on re-entry, so to speak. Unfortunately, the latter happened in this case and Peter's balls must have hurt from trying so hard but unfortunately disappointment set up camp as his shoot burned up and he ended up with a 544. That gave us a total of 1113 and third.
Third in most cases is a bronze medal, but due to their only being 4 teams competing, the rules are that only gold and silver are awarded - Rats!
It's always hard when your plans don't go to...errr....plan, but sometimes that's what happens in this game and you have to take the rough with the smooth and carry on. It's as simple as that really. No-one's fault - we both didn't sparkle as we know we can - some disappointment, but we've learned a lot, will take it, and will come up with a new plan of attack. So it's back to the job in hand, grins back on faces, and looking forward to Wednesday.
