The second RIBSA U-21 ranking event of the season was held in the Ivy Rooms Snooker Club in Carlow on the 24th of October and it was another great day of Irish junior snooker with young Adam Fitzgerald from Youghal CYMS winning the event beating Charlie Sweeney from Newbridge CYMS 3 frames to 1 in the final.
Big upsets in the early rounds were Kenny Wight beating last season’s number 2 Aaron Moyles 3-2 and Diarmuid O Connor beat last year’s number 1 Shane Bates 3-0. Later in the event Adam Bulman beat his brother and current Irish U-14, U-16 and U-18 Champion Ross Bulman 3-0.
In the Q-finals it was Charlie Sweeney who got the better of Aaron Tobin 3-2, Diarmuid O Connor lost to Ronan Whyte 3-2, Noel Landers beat Adam Bulman 3-2 and Adam Fitzgerald beat Stephen Bateman 3-2.
In the Semi Finals it was Charlie Sweeney against Ronan Whyte and Noel Landers against team mate Adam Fitzgerald and both matches were high quality with Charlie making 80 and 50 to beat Ronan and Adam beat Noel 3 frames to 1 in the other semi final.
The win for Adam means he now qualifies to represent the Republic Of Ireland in the 2016 European Championships in Poland in Februray and all eyes now will be focused on the final event on the 28th of November in the Ivy Rooms.
Adam will now attend the next event for training with Event 1 winner Josh Boileau and our National Coach. After the third event we will know the three winners and the final spot will be awarded to the highest available players from the rankings after the three events.
As National Coach and Tournament Director today I was very happy with all the players overall performance and some players really focused hard on playing their best today to climb up the ranking and some players need to go away and regroup for the final event.
RIBSA would like to thanks James Bateman, John Doherty and RIBSA Referee Conor Doyle for all their help on the day to help make the day so successful. Finally RIBSA would like to thank the Ivy Rooms for hosting the event and to all the players for making it a great day of snooker.
Full Entries
1. Jason O’Hagan Crossguns
2. Gavin O’Donnell Ivy Rooms
3. Stephen Bateman Kilkenny
4. Oisin Bateman Kilkenny
5. Grace Park Spawell
6. Matty Williams CYMS Newbridge
7. Keith O’Reilly CYMS Newbridge
8. Adam Bulman Youghal
9. Ross Bulman Youghal
10. Andrei Deasconescu Terry Rogers
11. Sean Devenney North West
12. Ronan Whyte North West
13 Eamonn Harkin North West
14. Michael Lagan North West
15. Keith Murphy CYMS Newbridge
16. Shane Hourihan Crucible
17. Dean Callanan Crucible
18. Noel Landers Youghal
19. Aaron Tobin Youghal
20. Charlie Sweeney CYMS Newbridge
21. Leon Costello CYMS Newbridge
22. Shane Bates 147 Wexford
23. Darragh Cusack Sutton LTC
24. Andrew Doherty NUI Maynooth
25. Kenny Whyte Youghal
26. Adam Fitzgerald Youghal
27. Fergal Quinn Mitchells SC
28. Jack Connolly Maynooth
29. Joe La Cumbre Portarlington
30. Aaron Holland Joey’s
31. Diarmaid O Conner Maynooth
32. Aaron Moyles Ballina
33. James McGuinness Kilkenny