The second RIBSA Billiards ranking event of the season took place on Sunday 7th October in Celbridge snooker club in Co. Kildare. This event was a 400up untimed format with a seeded draw and 13 players entered.
Early eliminations were Tommy Denniffe, Brendan Devlin, Robert McCrum, Lloyd Myers as well as Joe Doheny who had the consolation of winning the plate later on in the day. The quater final line-up turned out to be competitive and compelling with Darren Ryan putting it up to reigning national long-up champion Wayne Doyle who got over the line with a little over a hundred points to spare. Former multiple Irish champion Eugene Hughes who had the only bye of the draw overcame another great past champion Larry Drennan before producing the goods against an underperforming Wayne Doyle with a 218 point winning margin to book his place in the final.
In the other half of the draw John Kehoe got sweet revenge against Ross Doyle when he lost in their previous meeting in last month’s event. John coming back strong to take victory despite Ross producing a 79 break and a solid lead early on. The other quarter final saw two veterans lock horns in Aidan Murray and Club host Phil Martin who last won a national senior billiards title in 1999. Phil hit the ground running and was leading for much of the game before Aidan came back in typical fashion with two 50 plus breaks to gain the upper hand and momentum to win with 37 points to spare.
Aidan went on to book his place in the final after 2 and a half hours of competitive billiards against John Kehoe who hit a 53 break to lead by 121 halfway through the game but soon Aidan unsurprisingly got back solidly and settled to score heavily to wrap up the game by 68 points after a brave and encouraging performance by John to look forward to in the future.
The final turned out to be a little easier for Aidan than the semi-final game as he started off flying and never looked back against Eugene with very little breaks coming either way but Aidan scoring a lot more when on the table to take the second ranking event of the season by 400 – 182 after a long day of competitive billiards. The high break also went to Aidan with 108.
Special thanks to Brendan Devlin as always as Tournament Director and host club Celbridge and Phil Martin for the excellent facilities. The next billiards event on the RIBSA calendar is the Timmy Murphy memorial in the Ivy Rooms Snooker Club in Carlow on Sunday 4th November.
Pre Quaters:
Tommy Denniffe 262-400 Larry Drennan
Ross Doyle 400-282 Brendan Devlin
John Kehoe 400-334 Robert McCrum
Phil Martin 400-335 Lloyd Myers
Joe Doheny 244-400 Aidan Murray
Quater finals:
Wayne Doyle 400-298 Darren Ryan
Eugene Hughes 400-262 Larry Drennan
Ross Doyle 357-400 John Kehoe
Phil Martin 363-400 Aidan Murray
Semi finals:
Wayne Doyle 182-400 Eugene Hughes
John Kehoe 332-400 Aidan Murray
Final:
Eugene Hughes 192-400 Aidan Murray
High Breaks:
Aidan Murray ( 54, 54, 63, 64, 62unf, 66unf, 108 )
Ross Doyle ( 55, 79 )
Phil Martin ( 54, 68, 84 )
Joe Doheny ( 64)
Wayne Doyle ( 67)
Eugene Hughes ( 112 )
Report by John Kehoe
