On Saturday the 16th of October Snooker & Billiards Ireland held the U-14 National Snooker Championships in Newbridge CYMS in Co. Kildare. The tournament director was International referee Ger Murray and he decided to play a Round Robin format in order to give all players plenty of snooker on the day.
Each player would play the other players 2 frames each. The top 2 players would play in the best of 5 frames final. This proved to be a terrific idea with the finalists not decided until the last frame of the last match. Jack O Brien had the highest in the championship with a 34 Break.
The eventual winner Jack O Brien set his stall out early by winning 7 of his 8 frames. David Farrelly won 5 out of 8 but he could be caught by Joe Shannon or Max Kennedy who would play each other in the last round robin match. Max Kennedy won the first frame and when he potted the brown, blue and pink in the second, he discovered he had misread the scoreboard and realised he was 23 points behind on the brown and not 21 as he thought. We all have made that mistake.
Jude White was the 5th player and while he showed he can play the game, he just did not live up to his potential and finished 5th in the group. This meant that the final would be contested between Jack O’Brien from Rathkeale SC in Limerick and David Farrelly from Celbridge SC.
In the final Jack got off to a good start with some terrific potting and excellent safety play and he went on to win the first frame. David settled a bit in frame two and built an early lead, but Jack was not finished and got back into the frame and won it on the colours. Jack got off to a good start in frame three and although David tried hard he just could not get the better of Jack who went on to win 3 – 0 and become the 2021 Irish Under 14 National Snooker Champion.
Snooker & Billiards Ireland would like to thank Richie and Jim from Newbridge CYMS for the use of their premises and to TD Ger Murray. Finally thank you to all the players for a great day of junior snooker.
