Dublin Rifle Club “Leinster Open” 2005.

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The annual Leinster open took place over the weekend of July 16^th & 17^th.

This year saw the introduction of an Air rifle competition which was held at UCD rifle club on Sunday 17^th. The weekend started with the now annual 3 positions competition.

This event is the marathon of shooting, taking in excess of 3 hours shooting and 120 shots for record. The match is broken down between 3 positions, with 40 shots for each position being the course of fire. This year we had a record entry as usual.

The match began with the prone stage with Declan Kelly making a charge with 389 ex 400 to surge into lead. DRC club chairperson JK Walsh was lying in second place with a 2 point lead of 367 followed closely by Daniel Flemming on a 365. Standing was next and with Declan making a good start of a 95 ex 100 on the first string, a good result was expected, but alas this could not be maintained and he ended up with a 361 while increasing his lead to 115 points over the rest of the field. JK Walsh was looking good to securing the silver position after he increased his lead from 2 points to 29 points. The kneeling stage set up a grand finale to a long and tough shoot. Daniel Fleming soldiered on through his first 3 x 40 match and gained much experience in this multidiscipline event. Daniel put in a brave 345 to JK’s 275 and thus over hauling JK to land him self into the silver medal position by 41 points. Declan completed kneeling stage with a 367 to end up with a total 1117, taking the Gold by a credible 166 points. While this is a standard result for Declan, all credit must go to JK and Daniel for sheer determination to complete this mother of all target shooting events.

Results for the DRC 3x40

Declan Kelly	DRC
		P	97	98	97	97	389
		S	95	90	90	86	361
		K	87	93	93	94	367
								1117
Daniel Flemming	WTSC
		P	94	91	87	93	365
		S	53	68	61	59	241
		K	84	89	88	84	345
								951
JK Walsh	DRC
		P	94	87	94	92	367
		S	70	69	60	69	268
		K	69	70	62	74	275
								910

Next on the agenda was the Prone 60 shot match. This year saw a low turnout for this event but some good results were attained none the less.

http://homepage.eircom.net/~ntsai/DRCopenJuly05/JWalsh.JPG

Declan Kelly and Daniel Flemming got the early bird detail for the prone match starting at 08.00am, yes 8 o’clock in the morning! It was decided to hold an early detail to accommodate any shooter whom wanted and made their wishes known to shoot in the 2 events on Sunday.

Declan placed himself ahead with a solid 584 to Daniel’s 528. As the first prone detail finished, more competitors arrived to the Ballyforlan range. Declan’s lead in the Prone match was short lived with the excellent 589 scored by Michael Walls of the Fingal Target Shooting Club to oust the triple champion of the Leinster open in 1993, 2003 & 2004 to 2^nd place. Third place was a close contest between 1994 champion Leslie Fagan of Wilkins town and DRC veteran Tony Cogan last winning this championship in 1988, taking the bronze medal by a single point.

Congratulations to Michael Walls for a fine display of shooting and his first place in the Leinster Open 2005.

Results Prone Match

M. Walls	FTSC	99	95	99	100	98	98	589
D. Kelly	DRC	98	96	98	98	96	98	584
T. Cogan	DRC	92	95	96	99	99	97	578
L. Fagan	WTSC	96	98	96	96	94	97	577
PJ Harding	DRC	97	95	93	93	94	95	567
N. West	RRPC	93	95	98	92	93	95	566
B O’Farrell	DRC	89	94	94	92	89	87	545
JK Walsh	DRC	90	93	89	91	87	89	539
D. Fleming	WTSC	80	84	90	90	90	94	528

Finally for the first time in the 77 year history of the Dublin Rifle Club an Air rifle event was added to the programme of competitions. Unable to stage the event on our 50m range, UCD rifle club were kind enough to facilitate our request to hold our inaugural air rifle match on their range.

Most shooters chose either prone or Air rifle to compete in, with exception of Daniel Flemming and Declan Kelly. The match was poised for a climax when the qualification preliminary results were posted.

http://homepage.eircom.net/~ntsai/DRCopenJuly05/ARrange.JPG

Junior Shooters Sarah Cunningham and Damien Fagan of WTSC set the early pace with personal best scores of 573 and 570 respectively. Declan Kelly recovering from the early prone match was placed 2^nd on 572 with Richard Stapleton 566 and Sean Baldwin taking up the rear on 565 to challenge for the bronze position.

The final as always throws up surprises with some solid shooting being produced by Sarah Cunningham to claim her first victory in the Air rifle event.

Declan Kelly held onto 2^nd position and never got a start to challenge for 1^st position after his 3^rd shot was a 6. Damien Fagan claimed the 3^rd podium position only just from challenging Sean Baldwin of the Army Shooting team.

http://homepage.eircom.net/~ntsai/DRCopenJuly05/DRC%20002s.jpg

Results Air Rifle Match

Name

Club

Total

Ms. S. Cunningham

WTSC

97

95

95

94

97

95

573

674.7

9.5

10.2

10.0

10.8

10.5

10.8

10.3

10.5

9.1

10.0

101.7

D. Kelly

DRC

94

95

96

96

94

97

572

667.8

9.8

10.2

6.5

10.6

9.8

10.5

10.3

9.6

9.0

9.5

95.8

D. Fagan

WTSC

96

95

93

94

99

93

570

662.5

9.7

9.8

7.7

8.8

9.3

9.0

9.9

9.6

9.0

9.7

92.5

S. Baldwin

ATSC

96

93

92

94

96

94

565

662.3

9.1

9.5

8.2

9.8

10.6

10.2

9.2

10.6

9.7

10.4

97.3

R. Stapleton

WTSC

97

96

97

95

97

84

566

661.8

9.0

9.2

9.7

10.5

8.7

10.4

10.4

10.2

9.1

8.6

95.8

Ms. N Murphy

WTSC

94

94

94

95

94

92

563

660.9

8.7

9.8

8.7

10.5

10.0

9.8

9.7

10.3

10.1

10.3

97.9

R. Kane

ATSC

87

93

95

91

95

93

554

653.8

10.1

9.5

10.3

9.3

10.6

9.8

10.8

10.2

9.9

9.3

99.8

P. O'Brien

DRC

86

90

93

85

97

95

546

555.1

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

9.1

0.0

9.1

Ms. C Russell

LPC

92

91

89

88

91

87

538

D. Fleming

WTSC

95

89

88

90

87

88

537

Ms. E O'Hagan

LPC

87

86

92

84

93