FOCAL Treasurer Chris Marshall takes a break from crunching the numbers to write up our latest CO:Event in Dublin.

After the storm in Blackpool at the last event, there was an even worse storm awaiting us in Dublin. This hindered the journeys of a few would-be participants and scuppered the normal Friday night early evening get together. Despite this, our excellent host, Ed Byrne still managed a respectable eight pints. 

Many of the Dublin parkruns were cancelled due to the wind, with Tom Carey (Maus) being the only Countdowner “mental enough to go out in this weather” (his words). In the end we were left with a strong looking field of 17 for the Countdown event. 

The opening random draw saw two of the pre-event favourites drawn against each other in game one with MSR beating Maus 70-52. Maus was soon back to winning ways in game two in a game that was closer than the 28 point winning margin suggests against myself, while MSR beat another major contender in a close game with Matt O’Connor. A further two games were completed before a chippy lunch, which was generously included in the entry fee. There was also time for a cheeky pint before the afternoon games.

Game five saw the first nine letter word, with only Mike Springett spotting “SITOOTERY” (a Scottish word for a summer house). Game six saw a further two nines with “OBSTINATE” and “FELONRIES”. This game had the top nine round score of the day with 81 by Maus against Matt in what would prove to be an important win in the final standings. A further nine was available in round eight with some competitors spotting “GREASIEST” and from second last on the leaderboard, I achieved 80 points and the second highest score of the day which was as much a shock to myself as it was to my unlucky opponent and fellow English raider, Joe Henry.

The final league table showed Sean De Loughry as the top Irish player in 4th place, Matt finished in 3rd place, with Maus in 2nd and MSR unbeaten in all eight league games topping the standings. In the 14 round final, Maus took a six point lead in round four but after spotting “GOPURAMS” in round five and “BATFOWLED” as the conundrum in round seven, MSR would take a 12 point lead which he would hold until the end, repeating his victory from the first game of the day with a 93-81 final score. 

During the tournament, MSR played the eight of the next nine highest overall points scorers in his games and only won one of his nine games by more than 18 points, showing how competitive the field was on the day.

Most participants then went to The Blackrock pub for food and drink with the two finalists among the last to leave, heading straight to the airport for an early morning flight back to England. A big thanks goes to Ed for being a superb and efficient host once again. I’m proud to be the only attendee of all Dublin events and can definitely recommend it to anyone of any ability for as long as Ed keeps organising it.

There’s just Edinburgh and Worcester left now in the race for the top 8 to see who makes the Finals in Milton Keynes, with anyone not in the Top 8 still welcome for the concurrent MK Open event. I hope to see some of you there.