The Cobar Yabbies Senior Men’s Swimming Club fielded a team of 14 swimmers for the Western Districts AIF carnival at Condobolin on Sunday.
The carnival attracted 90 swimmers from around the Western Region and was a good warm up for swimmers for next month’s National AIF Carnival in Melbourne.
It was lucky the Cobar team took a bus to Sunday’s carnival as it helped them to bring home their trophies, including the Ian “Setts” Settree Memorial Trophy Presidents 50 metres Handicapped Event trophy, which club president John Carswell picked up.
It’s the fourth time the Cobar club has won the trophy, which was named in honour of their former club captain, Ian Settree.
The Yabbies also finished out in front in the 4 Man Scratch Relay with Cameron van Bruegel, Murray Harland, Scott Toomey and Bill Fugar a force to be reckoned with.
The Cobar team had four members in the 100 metres Freestyle Handicapped event finals with Andrew Watts finishing as the winner, Toomey was second, Fugar finished equal third while Carswell just missed out on a place.
Carswell was also a finalist in the 50m Handicapped event along with Paul Swainston however neither made it to the podium.
The Cobar team of Swainston, Watts, Shane Josephson and Bob Clark finished second in the 200 years plus relay and van Bruegel was also the runner-up in the 50m Scratch race.
The Yabbies also had to settle for second place in the 10 Man Relay event.
In the opening event of the club’s regular competition swim last Tuesday night there was no beating Bill Fugar because you can’t do better than swimming spot on to your nominated time.
Andrew Watts, who was second with 0.03 and Murray Harland, third on 0.05, both put in creditable efforts however Fugar finished exactly on his nominated time to win the handicapped freestyle 30 metres event.
The accuracy trend continued in the 50m event with Neil Valk the winner on 0.07 with Zach Finn and Stephen Clark tying for second place on 0.09.
For the second week running Murray Harland took out the 100m line honours.
He posted 0.08 for the win last week with Fugar finishing second on 0.25 and John Claus was just behind in third place on 0.79.
Harland teamed up with Bob Clark to fluke a win in the Brace Relay novelty event, which was a backwards walk across the pool.
The pair finished spot on their time to relegate Matt Harland and Cameron van Bruegel (0.22) into second place with Stephen Clark and Fugar claiming third spot with 0.91 seconds off their combined nominated time.
