As the temperature hit the high twenty's in Letterkenny things certainly heated up in the Irish Championships this morning as the breaks started flying in the Northwest Snooker Club. Muldoon started the ball rolling with breaks of 75 and 133 helping him to an early 3-0 lead over Redmond.
At virtually the same time McCrudden banged in a superb 103 on the table next to him as he went 2-1 up on Gilcreest. While Redmond did rally a bit of a comeback to only lose out 5-3 against the two time champion Gilcreest had no answer for McCrudden who seemed to be enjoying the slightly more generous pockets in the Northwest Club running out a 5-1 winner as he aims for his fourth title.
Williams started like a train going 2-0 up against O'Donoghue but the ex-champion fought back and took a lead of 4-2 before a Williams 64 break started his comeback and at 4-4 it all hit the fan. Donoghue opened with a 60 break and with only 66 left on the table it seemed all over but Williams got back into it and a missed snooker by O'Donoghue left Johnny in for a great 28 break with win on the pink to see him through to his first semi final of a senior.
The last match saw Goggins and Murphy fight it out with Murphy looking the sharpest early on with breaks of 71 and 84 to go 2-1 up. The next two frames were shared before a Goggins 100 leveled the scores. A 56 by Murphy at the start of the next wasn't good enough however as Goggins cleared with 65 and truly finished in style with a massive 135 total clearance.
It sets it up for two superb semi final matches this evening at 5pm alongside the finals of the Under-14, 16 and Masters. We will keep you up to date on the website and on the facebook page as we go along.
We also had the final of the Intermediate Shield this morning and it was Wayne Doyle who ran out a 4-1 victor over local player Phelim McCafferty in the final. Wayne also won the Intermediate Billiards title last weekend in what has been a great end to the season for the youngster from the Q Club, Wicklow.
