Queensland at the 2026 Eire Cup

On the last day of the 2026 Eire Cup in Perth, third place came down to one game, and Chris Borlase was playing it.

This is the cup itself. A silver rose bowl that has been around since 1937. The Australian international team won it in Dublin that year, beating Ireland four games to two, and brought it home to Victoria. The cup then sat unused for ten years, and was revived as an interstate trophy in 1948, and played for in Brisbane the year after. The Australian Croquet Council was formed that year, and the Eire Cup became its property. It has been Australia's interstate Association Croquet championship since 1950.

The 2026 Cup was held in Perth, mid-April, hosted by Croquetwest. Six state teams. Eight players each, four men and four women. Round-robin across the week. Singles and mixed doubles.

The 2026 winner was New South Wales. They went 5–0. The last test came on Sunday against Victoria, and it was as close as any test NSW played that week. They edged it eleven games to nine.

The standings show NSW made a clean sweep this year. NSW beat everyone. Victoria beat everyone except NSW. Queensland beat everyone except NSW and Victoria. South Australia beat the bottom two. Tasmania beat only Western Australia, who lost every test on their own lawns.

Queensland finished third. The loss to NSW was tight, nine games to eleven, the same margin NSW would later get against Victoria. The loss to Victoria was less generous: seven to thirteen. The three wins were against Tasmania, Western Australia, and South Australia. The first two were comfortable. The third was the one that gave Queensland third place.

Three Queenslanders stood out in Perth. Yuni Rowell, who has won the Australian AC Women's Singles in both 2023 and 2025, won eight of her ten singles for the state. Heather Knight, the team's manager, played very well, winning ten of her fifteen matches across singles and doubles. Greg Bury kept pace with both, winning three quarters of what he played. Captain Jacky Lynch and Shane Davis both sat above sixty per cent, and Kathie Grant won 54%.

Not everyone had the form they came in with. The Eire Cup is a different animal to a state event. Dave Luxmoore, who had pushed Davis to within two hoops at the Bribie final in the lead up, won two of his twelve matches across the week, including a 26–7 doubles win with Jacky Lynch against Western Australia. Sarah Widin had a better time, playing her first Eire Cup: on 16 April she won her first singles game for Queensland, and she was awarded the players' vote for player of the day. She also won a doubles game with Greg Bury that day.

All of which led to the Sunday. Queensland against South Australia, for third place. The first round of mixed doubles finished even. After the second round of singles the test was still level. With half an hour to go in the test, the match fell on a single game: Chris Borlase against Mark Kobelt of South Australia.

A game of Association Croquet is won by the side that first takes both its balls through each hoop twice and then hits the peg with both. Borlase finished with what the CAQ post called a Kooralbyn peg-out.

The shot was in.

The Queensland team had been watching with arms akimbo or hands at faces.

Queensland did not win the Eire Cup. NSW did, and the wider story of the week is theirs.

Queensland played proudly. They pushed the champions to within two games, and they won the third-place decider on the team's final shot of the week.

The silver rose bowl was presented to the winners. It dates from 1937. It has been played for in Dublin, Brisbane and Perth, among other places. The next Eire Cup runs from 17 to 21 March 2027.