Charlie Sweeney remains the only Republic of Ireland Junior still left in the World IBSF U-18 Snooker Championship here in Mol in Belgium after the other seven Irish players were knocked out yesterday.
In a hard day of top class snooker our players faced tough opposition and despite fantastic snooker our players were beaten as Ross Bulman was beaten by Jackson Page from Wales 2-4, Noel Landers was beaten by Tudor Popescu from Romania 2-4.
Sean Devenney was beaten 3-4 by Chris Totten from Scotland in a thriller. Fergal Quinn also was beaten 3-4 by Michał Kotiuk from Poland and Shane Hourihane was beaten 1-4 by Florian Nüßle from Austria.
Eamon Harkin was beaten 0-4 by an in form Amir Nardeia from Israel, Darragh Cusack was beaten by Ales Herout from Czech Republic but they were finally good news for the Irish as No. 8 seed Charlie Sweeney who had topped his group and placed directly into the last 32 beat Adam Morrey from England and he now faces Phuttakarn Kimsuk from Thailand in the last 16 on Friday at 10am local time.
The Q Final is scheduled for 2pm and the Semi Final at 6pm later tonight.
As National Coach I was proud of each player yesterday. The standard is so high now but the experienced gained with help our players develop more but they our juniors need to compete and train more against our top players to win at this level. We will now cheer on Charlie!!!!!!! Come on Ireland.
