Inigo Zobel’s Ayala defeated Richard Mille 15 – 11 on the Ambersham ground at Cowdray Park in the third semi final in the Cartier Queen's Cup 2012. Ayala, who are Ellerston in all but name, put on an impressive performance to win the match with Gonzalo Pieres scoring seven of his team’s goals. The damage was done in the third chukka when every member of the Ayala team scored, with Pieres finding the flags twice, while Richard Mille could only find one goal in  reply. This gave Ayala an 8-4 advantage at half-time and they never looked back. 

Pablo MacDonough, who had impressed for Richard Mille throughout this competition, continued to keep his team’s hopes alive by scoring twice in the fourth, once when successfully converting a penalty. In fact MacDonough scored 7 of his team’s 11 goals.  Richard Mille got  back into the game in the fifth, reducing the gap to just one goal (11-10) going into the final chukka. However with Pieres successfully converting two penalties and both Tomas Garbarini and John Paul Clarkin also adding more goals to Ayala’s tally, to only one goal in reply from Richard Mille, Ayala were the clear winners of this quarter final.

Ayala now play Karan Thapar’s EFG Bank Aravali at 5pm at Guards Polo Club on Wednesday 13 June in the second semi-final. The winner of this game will receive the Hubert Perrodo Trophy from Cari Perrodo.

Ayala v Richard Mille at Cowdray's Ambersham ground today (Images of Polo)