On Saturday & Sunday 6th – 7th April 2024, Rathkeale Snooker & Billiards club were delighted to be the host club for the staging of two National Intermediate Billiards Championships over the weekend.
This was a first time that we held these two tournaments outside of SBI headquarters, On Saturday the first tournament was the short format in which there was a good display and a few close matches, But as luck would have it, the final was two local members, Jason Dowling & Anthony O’Flaherty, Jason got off to a good start by taking the opening 2 frames, Anthony fought back with some solid playing and took the next 3 frames, frame 6 was a very close one, Jason needed 20 points and won it to make it level going into the final frame.
The last frame was very tense with both players having some missed opportunities, Anthony made a nice 52 break to bring the scores back to 90-88 but just missed a crucial shot, Jason came in and scored the 10 points he needed and won his 1st All-Ireland Intermediate final.
On Sunday we played the long format (400 points up), Joe Doheny won a close quarter final game against Anthony O’Flaherty to book himself into the semi-finals, Jason Dowling won against Brendan Devlin, John Kehoe also had a comfortable win against Robert McCrum as did Cork native Llyod Myers who took on Jersey resident but now residing in Ennis Co. Clare Alan Davie, We hope to see Alan playing in more tournaments next season, In the Quarter Finals, Kilkenny legend Larry Drennan had a very close win over Jason Dowling to book his well-deserved place into the semi-finals, John Kehoe also had a good win over Portmarnocks Aonghus McAnally to proceed to the semi-finals.
In the semi-finals it was Llyod that played very well and had a comfortable win against Larry Drennan to reach the final, the other semi-final was contested between Wexford native John Kehoe and Borris-in-Ossory’s Joe Doheny, both players played good billiards, but Joe was in good form and was determined to get to the final which he duly did.
The final (500 points up) itself was contested between Lloyd & Joe, it was Llyod that got of to a good start and found himself well over 130 points ahead of Joe, both players missed some crucial shots at times, Joe kept his mind focused and pinned back Llyod’s lead to under 20 points, Llyod then played some fantastic in off’s with lots of cue power and made some good 30 odd breaks, at the closing stages the score was Lloyd 498 to Joe’s 463, Joe needed something to happen and was on a break of 35 when he needed just 2 points to win, but was left with a tricky in off the red, Llyod stepped in and under pressure he played another fantastic long in off the red to win by just 2 points!!
Final score was Llyod Myers 500 – Joe Doheny 498,
The club would like to thank both Anthony & Jason for their commitment and running both tournaments, the tables were playing great and thanks to Tom Enright for maintaining them. the club would like to thank Anthony’s wife Rosie for providing the food and drinks for both days, she done an excellent job so well-done Rosie!
Lastly the club would like to thank our sponsors Flogas Ireland ,to all competitors for turning up for both days, their kind words meant a lot to us, we hope to stage these events again next year.
Also we would like to wish Jason and other SBI members the very best of luck in the upcoming Irish Open event on Friday 12th April in Carlow.
