Youngest RIBSA Grade 3 Referee
John Doherty, Aaron Moyles (14) Grade 3 referee and Ger Murray
Club focus this month features the New Ballina Snooker Club, Abbey Street, Ballina Town, Co. Mayo.
Club Owner Richard Gorman is eager to develop the junior game in Ballina and he is providing free snooker and coaching on Saturday morning for under 18 players.
UP COMMING EVENTS
The Club won the Connacht Club title in January and local players Jason Devaney and Sean Conway have won numerous National Ranking Titles over the last few seasons.
The club is one of the best clubs in Ireland and Richard hopes to hold more National events in 2010 and 2011
On 23rd January, the club held a coaching workshop from Sports Loopy and a RIBSA Snooker Coaching Clinic for all the players in the club
If your club wishes to be the next club in this series please email ribsa@clubi.ie
Club Owner Richard Gorman is eager to develop the junior game in Ballina and he is providing free snooker and coaching on Saturday morning for under 18 players.
UP COMMING EVENTS
The Club won the Connacht Club title in January and local players Jason Devaney and Sean Conway have won numerous National Ranking Titles over the last few seasons.
The club is one of the best clubs in Ireland and Richard hopes to hold more National events in 2010 and 2011
On 23rd January, the club held a coaching workshop from Sports Loopy and a RIBSA Snooker Coaching Clinic for all the players in the club
If your club wishes to be the next club in this series please email ribsa@clubi.ie
Ballina Snooker Team - Connacht Club Champions 2010
Ballina Players Jason Devaney and Sean Conway National Junior Champions
RIBSA Coaching Day - 23rd January 2010
Sports Loopy Workshop
Sports Loopy provide innovative and elite performing workshops. Our workshops will assist athletes and teams in reaching their true potential. We provide athletes, coaches, schools, sports camps and sports teams with key insights and cutting edge strategies to perform at the highest level.
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Snooker Loopy In Ballina
By Michael Gallagher : Western People
By Michael Gallagher : Western People
THE morning fog was still hovering over the Moy as they marched up the hill with their sticks in their hands. Last Saturday, the new army of Ballina cue artists converged on the local Snooker Club long before most of their contemporaries had even contemplated rising from the leaba.
The sparkling sunshine was playing tricks on the unsuspecting but the frosty breath and the freezing fingers soon alerted all to the climatic conditions.
In the sanctuary of the cosy club there were no thoughts of the frost, no pondering about icy roads; all that mattered was the cue and the chalk, the reds and the colours.
Richard Gorman has developed a superb facility on Abbey Street. The new snooker club is a joy for those wishing to try their skills on the green baize. Numerous perfectly appointed full-sized tables awaited the young starlets on Saturday morning and they visibly itched to get their cueing arms into full swing.
Almost 40 boys made their way past the inviting playing surfaces and gathered in a nearby lounge as their snooker education took on a whole new emphasis.
The youngsters gather in the club every morning for free table time and coaching sessions but last Saturday was special. The budding talents were there to meet Elite Performance Mind Coach, Denis Coen and Gary O¹Mahoney, sports consultants with Sports Loopy, a company specialising in the development of sports teams and individuals.
Denis and Gary were booked in to work with the boys and give them a better
understanding of the attitude and application required to be a top snooker player. A coaching session with Irish coach PJ Nolan was scheduled for later in the morning, so the Ballina youngsters were in for a morning they wouldn¹t forget in a while.
This reporter was interested to see how long Coen could hold the attention of a roomful of lively young fellas but there was no need to worry; the speaker kept his audience enthralled and interested from first sentence to last.
He surprised them by proving that snooker is a 100% physical game before testing their awareness by playing a video of two basketball teams. Everyone in the room was asked to count the amount of passes completed while also keeping an eye out for anything unusual.
I was certain that I¹d ace the test no problem and managed to count 13 passes, unfortunately I and most of the young lads failed to see a gorilla moon-walking across the court. So much for my sense of awareness. Denis went on to explain that we all have 60,000 thoughts a day and impressed on his audience the importance of developing a positive self image.
The three very important words, Œability, motivation and attitude¹ were explained and developed by the Sports Loopy boys in the following minutes and they encouraged their listeners to focus on Œnow¹ and the things that they had the ability to change.
Coen really caught the attention of his listeners when he told them that he could improve their breaks by 32 points in three months if they applied what he told them to their game. This statement interested me greatly and I¹m looking forward to my own 33 break in April.
Later in the session Denis and Gary showed the boys why Tiger Woods is such
a successful golfer. The American ace is always totally focused while on the course, always Œin the here and now¹ and Coen emphasised how important this
attitude was, if success was to be achieved.
The next project called for the young lads to come up with ten reasons why Woods is such a great player. When they had completed the task Coen explained that only two of the 10 answers indicated physical prowess and asked what that indicated.
³That tells us that Tiger Woods is 80% mental,² a young voice replied immediately and it was hard to argue with him given the statistics. Soon, Coen and O¹Mahoney had left the young stars with a lot to think about and the snooker hopefuls headed out to the tables with a cargo of very helpful psychological tools.
Waiting for them on the tables was the Irish coach and immediately the sounds of cue and ball echoed around the club. PJ worked on the art of break building and showed his scholars how rolling the cue ball was much more productive than forcing it.
Soon, reds and colours were dropping into the pockets and confidence multiplied with every passing minute. The impressive club was a hive of activity, anticipation and excitement.
The Irish coach, the local coaches and the budding stars all applied themselves to the task in hand. Coen had earlier told the boys that a player had to practise for 10,000 hours before they hit the big time and many were taking their first steps on that journey.
The frost might have ruled the outside world but in Ballina Snooker Club nobody cared, break building, having fun and preparing for greatness was all that mattered.
