Wednesday, 11 September 2024 / Published in Billiards

Doyle Wins Billiards Event 1

The first Billiards Ranking Event kicked off the 2024-2025 SBI Billiards Season on Sunday 8th September in Celbridge Snooker Club with an encouraging 16 players taking part in a best of 5x100up format which was also an open draw.

Round of 16 saw 6 out of 8 whitewash matches that saw debuts in Ciaran Doyle and Dylan Troy who went down John Downey and Dylan Rees respectively. Bree BSC member John Kehoe had an impressive win over former multiple National billiards champion Eugene Hughes 3-1 but the games were much closer than the final scoreline suggested. The high break in that round came from reigning National Long-up Champion Aidan Murray with 77 and added 53 in his win over National Intermediate short format champion Jason Dowling.

The quarter finals saw Dylan Rees play outstanding billiards in his 3-0 triumph against John Kehoe, there were also 3-0 wins for Anthony O’ Flaherty and Aidan Murray while the match of the round was Wayne Doyle’s win over Joe Doheny after falling 2-0 down but dugged deep to find a way and found a way he did to edge it in the end.

Wayne really started motoring thereafter in his semi final success against Dungarvan clubman Dylan Rees that included the highest break of the day with 101 unfinished as well as 59 and 64. There were no surprises when Aidan Murray got to the final with a tough 3-1 victory against Anthony O’ Flaherty and wrapped up the match with a 53 unfinished break.

The final turned out to be a one sided affair as Wayne gained some revenge in his loss to Aidan in the National Senior Long-up Championship Final back in May with a resounding 3-0 win that saw him hit breaks in each game with 95 in the first, 75 in the second and 72 unfinished in the third to seal victory in the first ranking event of the new season and go top of the SBI Billiards Rankings.

Thanks to Phil Martin, James Geraghty and Celbridge Snooker Club for hosting the event as well as John Kehoe as Tournament Director. Thanks must also go to Annette Newman and Dan Carroll who jointly refereed the final. Well done also to Larry Drennan who won the plate final against Jason Dowling.

The next event on the billiards calendar will be the Timmy Murphy Memorial which will take place in Celbridge Snooker Club on Sunday 6th October at 10am with entries to be paid in cash on the day and Brendan Devlin will be Tournament Director.

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