Celbridge Snooker Club played host to the first National Intermediate tournament of the season with 59 players entered. The event was organised by the Leinster Association under RIBSA rules. Players to impress in the early rounds were Richie Toal (Mullingar), Hughie O’Donnell (Tuam) and Brendan Thomas ( Roadstone). However in the top half of the draw Adrian Morrissey ( New Ross) came through to meet Cathal Gordon (Galway) in the first semi-final. Adrian’s good early form deserted him and Cathal who was in inspired form ran out a deserved winner on a scoreline of 3 frames to 0.
The second semi was a much closer affair with the match going all the way to a 5th frame decider between Andrew Doherty (NUI Maynooth) and John Mc Bride (Navan). Andrew won the frame with a very good break of 63.
In the final Cathal maintained the high standard he had set and produced a number of telling breaks to win by 3 frames to 1. Andrew appeared to be affected by the very long day of snooker and did not perform as well as he had in earlier rounds.
T D Tony Thorpe paid tribute to all the players who competed commenting that the number of entries received was very encouraging. He thanked Ger Murray and Tom Cronley from the Leinster Association for their help with running the tournament and getting the photographs and posts out on facebook.
Phil Martin and James Geraghty as usual were excellent hosts and we look forward to returning to Celbridge for future events
