Guernsey Open 6, 7 & 8 September 2024

Details below. Singles on Friday, Doubles on Saturday and Triples on Sunday. Come and join us!

We currently have teams from ten different clubs including players from the US. The Singles is likely to fill up first, so please think about entering early if you want to play on Friday. Currently there are 30 entries for the Singles.

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2023 report

Guernsey takes a clean sweep of the four competitions in the 2023 Network Insurance & Financial Planning Open Doubles. Jersey takes the Triples, sponsored by The Music Box.

47 doubles teams and 27 triples teams contested the annual Guernsey Club de Petanque Open over a very hot and sunny weekend. The Guernsey contingent produced an excellent performance in the Doubles, ending up with a clean sweep of the four competitions. With teams from the UK, Jersey and even Alderney competing, the standard was high throughout the day. In the morning qualifying, five Guernsey teams made it through to the main tournament which comprised twelve teams in total. These teams were Craig Allen & Dan Le Savauge, Lee Holberry & Iain Haith, Seb Renaud & Brandon Ogier, Giles Cleal & Donal Kennedy and Fred Wallnofer & Dave Bartram. This represented the strongest performance from the home teams in recent memory.

In the afternoon, there were two leagues of six with the top team in each league qualifying for the final. In Division A, Craig and Dan met one of the strongest Jersey teams in Callum Stewart & Laurent Pellaton in the first round. After a slow start, they came back from 0-5 down to win 13-5, thus knocking out one of the favourites for the tournament. This match was followed by a tight game against Lee and Iain, which they lost 13-11. With the standard high and teams beating each other within the league, Craig and Dan needed to win their last game against another strong Jersey team by a large points difference. Following some high quality shooting from Dan and aggressive play by both players, they duly won the match 13-4 which meant that they won the league. In Division B, Neil Selby and James Gennoe from Jersey were the only team to win all of their games, meaning that they also qualified for the final. In doing so, they beat Fred and Dave, who ended up in second place in their league with a very creditable performance over the day, coming joint third overall.

The final was a tight affair with the score at just 2-1 after six ends. In many ways, Craig and Dan were holding on at the start, having to cope with some excellent shooting from Neil. They then managed to eke out a 3-2 lead before a terrible end when they placed four boules long. Dan then fired the one Jersey boule out of desperation and Craig then placed his final boule right on the cochonnet. The Jersey team subsequently moved the cochonnet by mistake to the back boules which resulted in three points for Craig and Dan and a huge swing in momentum. In the next end, Craig fired out the one remaining Jersey boule for another three points, taking them to 9-2. Neil and James then came back to 9-9 (including a 5 point end) before Craig and Dan closed out the match, largely through some relentless close placing with a 13-9 victory.

Keith Priaulx and Shane Brehaut overcame the disappointment of losing out in the morning to take home the Da Nello Plate. In more good news for Guernsey, Vikki Le Poidevin and Margaret Allen took home the Consolage 1 trophy and Jo Rivers and Ivan Ferguson took home Consolage 2. This meant that Guernsey enjoyed a clean sweep of all four competitions plus filling up half of the top six spots in the main tournament.

In the Triples , Craig and Dan teamed up with Giles Cleal. Whilst their standards never reached the heights of the Doubles, they once again found themselves in the final after a similar format and some battling performances against UK, Jersey and Guernsey opposition. This time, they faced another high quality Jersey team in Geoffroy Buffetrille, Andrew Bellamy-Burt and Callum Stewart. Geoffroy in particular played with an extremely high standard, shooting almost every boule. The Jersey team ran out convincing winners 13-3, with a superb shot to shoot the cochonnet on the final end to seal the victory.

Well done to Seb Renaud and Dave Allen who led a team of volunteers to organise the tournaments and to manage the scoring and the umpiring over the weekend.

Craig Allen and Dan Le Sauvage with the Network Insurance & Financial Planning trophy following a 13-9 victory in the final

Keith Priaulx and Shane Brehaut winners of the Da Nello’s Plate.

Margaret Allen & Vikki Le Poidevin with the Consolage 1.

Jo Rivers and Ivan Ferguson with the Consolage 2.

Geoffroy, Andrew and Callum with the Guernsey flag after their Music Box Triples win.

Giles, Dan and Craig in second place.

The triples finalists.

The summary of the Guernsey Open 2022 is here:

Set over two days, the Doubles were on Saturday 10 September and the Triples were on Sunday 11 September. Here is the report:

Major honours shared between Guernsey and Jersey at the 2022 Guernsey Pétanque Open

Thirty-two doubles teams and twenty triples teams from the UK, Jersey and Guernsey contested the annual Guernsey Pétanque Open which returned last weekend after a two year covid enforced break. The major honours over the weekend were shared with a Jersey team winning the Doubles and a Guernsey team winning the Triples over two days of hard fought matches.

In the Doubles, after the morning qualifying groups, eight teams remained in the main tournament, led by three teams from Jersey and three teams from Pétanque Events in the UK. Not to be outdone, two local teams also made the last eight: Andi Cleal with Hana Atkinson in one division and Craig Allen with Rob Tulie in the other division. Cleal and Atkinson played well throughout the day, but did not manage to post additional victories in a tough pool, headed by the eventual winners Frank & Bean. They missed out by the narrowest of margins 13-12 against a Pétanque Events team and had their chances to win. Frank & Bean (Geoffroy Buffetrille and Matt Buesnel) won all of their matches and therefore topped their group ahead of Pétanque Events 3.

Allen and Tulie fared better, narrowly beating a strong Jersey team Callum Stuart and Andrew Bellamy-Burt in their first afternoon match before succumbing 13-11 to another experienced Pétanque Events team, despite having led throughout most of the match. Whilst the Guernsey team still had an outside chance of topping the group going into the final match, they were well beaten by a strong Jersey team Matt Pinel and Laurent Pellaton in the final round, losing 13-8, but received the consolation prize of being the top local team in the Doubles. With Pinel and Pellaton also having beaten their Jersey team mates Stuart and Bellamy-Burt, they remained undefeated in the afternoon and topped their group.

The final was therefore contested by two Jersey teams, with Geoffroy Buffetrille and Matt Buesnel beating their local rivals Matt Pinel and Laurent Pellaton 13-6 in The Network Insurance final which went on until the early evening. It was clear that these were the best two teams over the day and their standard was markedly ahead of the teams from the UK and Guernsey. With several of the top local players missing the Doubles due to prior commitments, they will have to work hard to compete with this Jersey based contingent in future competitions.

The Plate was another all Jersey affair. In the end, it was won by All By Myself, (Neil Selby and James Gennoe) beating Country Boys (Michael Cotillard and Darren Le Brun) in the final. Guernsey took the Consolage One with Fred Wallnofer and Dave Bartram making up for a poor morning with some good play in the afternoon. Consolage 2 was won by Pétanque Events 7 (James Kirkbride and Peter Le Cheminant) which was a mixed UK and Guernsey team.

The Triples on Sunday was a different affair, with two Guernsey teams performing well from the outset. Having missed the Doubles due to a prior commitment, Shane Brehaut was keen to make his mark and he was joined by two of his long standing partners, Ian Haith and Lee Holberry. The strongest local trio on paper duly delivered, winning their first three matches to take them to the semi-final. Another local team performed equally as well with Vikki le Poidevin, Jim Ramsay and Joan Ramsay also winning their first three matches. In the semi-finals, Brehaut, Haith and Holberry defeated a very experienced Pétanque Events female team, but Le Poidevin, Ramsay and Ramsay succumbed to a strong Jersey trio whose team members had also performed well on the previous day.

This led to a Guernsey vs Jersey showpiece final with the best two teams on the day up against each other in a game of high standards. After another fairly late finish, the Guernsey team ended up victorious, winning 13-7 after some consistently good play from Haith and Holberry in particular. In doing so, they took home the Doyle Motors trophy, meaning that Guernsey and Jersey shared the two major prizes over the weekend.

Here are the results:

The Saturday Doubles was kindly sponsored by