About 20 shooters represented the south west, wales had a few more as it was their home ground and very little travelling involved for them. The basis of the competition is that everybody shoots the same 40 targets, and the best ten scores from each team are added together, the team with the larger aggregate being the winner.

The top shot of the day was Dorian Falconer, a Welsh International and he scored 38. Second was Paul Eaton (the South West 2007 champion) from Buckley Wood club near Exeter, and he had 37. No-one scored 36, then six shooters all scored 35 each. I was in that group, along with Nigel Street from South Devon, and four Welsh competitors. We could not all be joint third so we had to have a six-way shoot-off to decide the 3rd to 8th places.

In a shoot-off, you shoot two targets first seated then again kneeling then again standing. They were at 50 and 55 yards range and the bull you are looking for is 40mm diameter. In the first round of the shoot-off, two WeIsh were eliminated, so they were declared 7th and 8th. In the next round another Welsh went out and he was 6th. In the next round I went out to be 5th overall. Nigel went out next so he was 4th, leaving another Welsh International Mark Sheperd is also the reigning European Champion, in 3rd place.

Chris Jones from Cullompton scored 34 and tied with a welsh shooter; they had a shoot off which Chris won to take 9th place overall.

So the south west had Paul Eaton in second place, Nigel Street in fourth, me at fifth, and Chris Jones in ninth place.

Sadly it wasn't enough and we lost overall by roughly 330 to 315.

Back row from right, Chris, Paul, Nigel. Front row from left, Rich

SHEBBEAR SHOOTER FLIES FLAG 2007

Sunday 1st April saw a Richard Clark making his mark for Shebbear and the South West. He took part in the inter-regional field target shooting competition at Curridge, near Newbury. This is an annual event when the seven English regions plus Wales and Scotland send their best fifteen shots to take part and to see which is the winning region. That's 135 shooters all told. There are ten clubs in the South West and it's an honour to shoot for the region at this event.

Our region doesn't normally do well in this type of competition because we have fewer people, and usually at this competition we come last or last but one out of the nine that enter.

This year we fared a lot better and we came fourth, being pipped out of third place by only seven shots, 267 to 260. The top score of the day was 36. With Richard the fifth best in the whole of the country, with 32.

Tony Jones practising with his hunter FT rifle

Rich Clark taking part in the challenge shoot between the south west and south wales in October 2006. The south west beat the visitors by just 4 targets.

A typical knock down target The aim is to hit the centre zone and then the target will fall. If you hit the black plate nothing happens. The target can be reset for the next shooter by pulling a cord.