Talk:Ashburton Shield

New format = new section?

As regular editors of this page will know, the competition changed substantially this year. Given the withdrawal of the Cadet Target Rifle and simultaneous removal of fullbore shooting as an approved cadet activity, the Ashburton is now de facto open only to those schools with a civilian rifle club (rather than only a CCF) and which are able to provide their own rifles. It's also now an open contest in terms of rifles and equipment, whereas prior to 2026 both of those were tightly controlled. As a result, the 2026 entry was only 8 schools, plus a BYSA catch-all team (mostly with surnames that will be familiar to those in the shooting world...), all of which were very much in the "premier league" of the old competition.

I wonder whether this justifies hiving the new contest off into a new section -- effectively treating the "old" Ashburton as a separate competition? Quite what we do with the winners' statistics may be a different question: I am sure that Epsom et al will continue to count their wins as adding to their old totals, but equally the chances are that most of the schools on our table are now effectively "frozen" and should not be thought of as potential competitors in the current contest. Maybe this is a discussion for next year, once the new format has had a chance to shake out. What do others think? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 09:32, 28 July 2026 (UTC)