Aidan Murray Wins Scratch Billiards Event 2

Billiards Scratch series, second round to Aidan Murray.

The second tournament of the Scratch Billiards series was played at the Ivy Rooms Snooker Club in Carlow on Sunday, 24th of January 2010. Phil Martin (Celbridge), in keeping with his current No 1 ranking position, again reached the Final, but had to yield tournament victory to Aidan Murray (Wicklow) on the day.

In the top half of the draw, Phil earned his place in the semi final when he saw off a spirited game by junior Billiards newcomer Wayne Doyle, finishing a mere 55 points ahead when time was called. The other semi finalist in the top half of the draw was Victor O’Gorman (Dun Laoghaire), who had good wins in both his pre-quarter and quarter final matches against Darren Ryan (Celbridge) and Brendan Devlin (Celbridge) respectively, scoring the full 400 points well within time in each game, including making the day’s high break of 100 in the process.
 
In the semi final, Victor’s form flagged somewhat, perhaps as a result of his highly energetic and free scoring efforts in his two previous games. Sensing this, Phil seized the opportunity to pile on enough pressure to take the game by almost double scores.

In the bottom half of the draw, Aidan Murray (Wicklow) claimed his place in the semi final with a decisive win over Joe Doheny (Borris-in-Ossory) while his opponent in the semi final, Larry Drennan (Kilkenny) had an equally impressive win over Timmy Murphy (Cork). By contrast with their quarter final matches, the semi final was a much closer duel with never more than 25 points separating the two until, at five minutes to time, Aidan had scoring visits of 27 and 37 without reply from Larry to earn him his place in the final.

In the Final, Aidan was the first to show, scoring more steadily and consistently than Phil. Phil found himself 80 points adrift by the time he got his game together, from which point, although he was matching Aidan in the scoring, he could do no more than maintain the differential. In a late spirited rally, including an impressive break of 46 under pressure, Phil looked as though he might be on the point of mounting a counter attack. A couple of basic positional errors, however, compounded by a few unexpected misses, left him with no time to make up the remainder of the lost ground, leaving Aidan a worthy winner on the day.

The next Scratch Billiards round of the season takes place at the Ivy Rooms, Carlow on Sunday, 28th March 2010. Entries will be accepted before 10.30am on the morning of the event.

We would like to thank Jim Leacy for the excellent facilities at The Ivy Rooms and Marian and staff for their help on the day.

Brendan Devlin

Semi-finals
Philip Martin 400 - 203 Victor O’Gorman
Aidan Murray 297 - 236 Larry Drennan

Final
Aidan Murray 265 - 219 Philip Martin