N Ireland win North v South Billiards

The annual Billiards International North-South Challenge Tournament took place at the Premier Snooker Club, Glengormley on Saturday and Sunday, 22nd and 23rd April 2017.  The format of the event was that each team of eight was divided into two groups of four, so that each player met four opponents from his corresponding group, with the consequence that all benefited from the variety of games the format provided.

Play started at 10.30 on Saturday morning, the first session producing the first shock of the day when the Northern team took a clean sweep 8-0. The Southern team fared no better in the second session, the Northern team again taking a clean sweep 8-0. When the third session produced a 6½-1½result in favour of the North the writing was very clearly on the wall for the visiting Southern team. The fourth session, which wrapped up Saturday’s play, produced a 5-3 result for the home team, depriving the Southern team of any sessional win in the first day’s play.

When play resumed on Sunday morning there was a hint of a revival of form for the Southern players when they took the first session 6-2. The next session was shared 4-4, assuring the Northern side of the 2017 title with two sessions to spare. As though to underline their dominance of this year’s event, the Northern side took each of the final two sessions of the tournament 5-3.

Our thanks are due to Premier Snooker Club, Glengormley for the excellent playing facilities they provided and for the welcome they extended to the players all of which did so much to contribute to the success of the tournament.

Congratulations to the Northern team on a well-deserved victory and commiserations to the South whose play was perhaps not justly reflected in the final score line.

Full results are available on the following Google Drive link:

drive.google.com/file/d/0B8oFnF3nlx6vSThLZmNSV3prUVU/view?usp=sharing

Report by Brendan Devlin