National representative Orville Henriques topped the Manchester Rifle and Pistol Club's (MRPC) final shooting event last year. The new season of the MRPC will shoot off tomorrow at its Lincoln Range at 10 a.m.

Henriques takes aim at international success

Richard Bryan

Star Writer

Having targeted an improvement on his international performance as goal for 2012, marksman Orville Henriques began the new year in positive fashion by capturing the Manchester Rifle and Pistol Club (MRPC's) first tournament of the year.

The shooter had closed the year in style by winning the Christmas Rappa Pam Pam, featuring eight stages, and showed he was not only the one to beat this season, but stepped up his game a notch with a focus on breaking new ground.

"You have the Florida Open coming up, and last year, even though I got a few top-three places, I am hoping to improve a lot this year."

Henriques topped the field of 15 shooters, amassing a gap of 153 points and a percentage difference of 35. He was overall 30 seconds faster than the field but attested that the top five shooters had improved tremendously in the latter category.

targets

He was most dominant on stage one, labelled 'through the port', which featured four ports to take aim at targets from; stage three, aptly named 'Down the Pike', featured an open window, which activated two swingers; and finally, the 'Long Shot' stage five, swhich had targets at a range of 60 metres.

"You can see where more shooters are learning and gaining, but my focus is always to win in a way that prepares me for bigger battles ahead on the international scene," Henriques said.

The shooter takes a lot of inspiration from track and field, where he idolises the approach of Usain Bolt, who always likes to win.

Despite Henriques' prominence at no.1 among MRPC shooters and nationally in the Limited Division, Sunday's tournament featured the closest positioning among the second-tier shooters. Sue-Ann Henriques finished second but her final percentage score of 64.49 was a mere four better than David 'Bulldog' McMorris Sr, who finished fifth.