The First Senior Ranking Event on the new RIBSA Senior Snooker Season was played in Ivy Rooms Snooker Club in Carlow with 84 entries and the standard of play was very high over the weekend.
This event was won by Colm Gilcreest from Celbridge SC who won the RIBSA CLASSIC title beating Mario Fernandez from St Johns Limerick in a superb final 5 frames to 4. The win moves Colm to number 1 spot on the rankings and it promises to be a great fight for the number 1 spot this season.
Colm Glicreest 5-4 Mario Fernandez (67 – 20, 84(84) – 10 , 17 – 59 , 1 – 90 (73) , 11 – 63 (63) , 62 – 30 , 48 – 41 , 0 – 80 (80), 83 – 41)
In the first Semi Final Colm Gilcreest beat TJ Dowling from Celbridge SC 4 frames to 1 in a high quality match with TJ knocking in a 110 break. The other semi final saw Mario Fernandez from St Johns Limerick and Robert Murphy from Monkstown battle out a great match to play Colm in the final. In the end Mario Fernandez beat Robert Murphy from Monkstown SC 4 frames to 3
In the Q-Finals TJ Dowling beat Keith Sheldrick 4-3, Colm Gilcreest beat John Torpey 4-0, Mario Fernandez beat Phil Arnold 4-1 and Robert Murphy beat Jason Devaney 4-0
The new Open Draw system created a number of high quality matches in the last 64 round fitting of any final with Vincent Muldoon beating Brendan O’Donoghue and Robert Murphy beating David Hogan and TJ Dowling beat Rodney Goggins.
This opened the door for some junior players to reach the last 16 like Gavin Stokes with a great win over John O’Sullivan and Paul McGrane who beat Kevin McMahon and young Jason Devaney who beat Clinton Franey and Nigel Power to reach the Q-Finals. It was also great to see top players back playing like Keith Sheldrick who reached the Q-Final and Anthony O’Connor who reached the Last 32 in the event.
The Highest break prize went to TJ Dowling with a fantastic 110 break; other high breaks in the event were 98 by Robert Murphy and 96 by Vincent Muldoon. RIBSA would like to thank Jim & Marion Leacy from The Ivy Snooker Club for the excellent facilities and all their help over the weekend.
Finally I would like to thank all the players for a great snooker display and I look forward to seeing them again in Event 2 in Carlow on Saturday / Sunday 30th and 31st of October.
