Thursday, 19th October 2017


sport@eastcorkjournal.ie East Cork Snooker Ireland Are The International Challenge Cup Champions THE Republic of Ire-


land are the ‘2017 Inter- national Challenge Cup’ (ICC) champions fol-


lowing a fantastic week- end of International snooker at


the Locarno


snooker club in Edin- burgh. The win for Ireland was


impressive and the contri- bution that the two Cork players on the Republic of Ireland team, Brendan Cooney and Noel Landers was immense with Coon- ey winning eleven of his twelve frames played and Landers won eight


out


of his nine frames played and was the (ICC) junior champion. The weekend started


with a magnificent open- ing ceremony and after the speeches were made, each team went


away


for the evening ready for a 10am start on Friday morning where certainly favouritism was between the hosts Scotland and the defending champions Northern Ireland, but it was the Republic of Ire- land team who really hit the ground running with Cooney, Landers, Robert Murphy and Mick Judge all rattling off early wins. Jason Devaney,


Philip


Brown, Ernie McMullen, Stephen Merrigan and Eddie Ingle all playing out of their skins also began to win match after match. The complete contrast


was the performance of the defending champions Northern Ireland who couldn’t buy a frame and really slipped out of con- tention. The much improved


French team were win- ning but


occasional frames, it was the Scottish


players who began to make a move on Friday afternoon and on two occasions were level with the Republic of Ireland, but a late Friday evening flourish from the Irish and in particular Brendan Cooney saw day one end with the Republic of Ire- land four frames in front of Scotland and also with three frames in hand. Day two started pretty


similarly to day one with the Republic of Ireland


and yet again Landers and Cooney on fire and the junior title was secured for the young Youghal cue- man after just one frame and in fact Landers would not drop a single frame on day two. Cooney also was un- going ten


stoppable


frames undefeated and the Ireland team were getting ever closer to re-capturing the ‘International Chal- lenge Cup’ and bringing it back over the Irish Sea and showing what a deter- mined team they are. All day Saturday the


Irish team kept a min- imum of seven frames between themselves and Scotland and that simply was the


eventually the Winning the ICC jun-


ior title so emphatically speaks volumes about the quality of Noel Landers and the young players that have emerged from the East Cork town, Landers said “I am really happy to have won the junior tour- nament and to contribute to the team total, I got a new set of balls for first prize and I will be giving them to my club”.


Final result at the 2017 International Challenge Cup 1st


difference and tourna-


ment wound down to a close with victory secured with over nine frames re- maining. The Irish team Captain


Stephen Merrigan told Evening Echo Sport “We came to Edinburgh un- fancied to win this tour- nament and the lads dug deep and performed bril- liantly and I personally am thrilled to win the cup back again and the whole team are delighted with the victory. This is a great tournament and it is get- ting better every year, but 2017 belongs to us and we are very happy to have won it”. Speaking to Youghal’s


Brendan Cooney after the Cup presentation he said “It is great to win the cup back, we worked hard for the win to be honest and I think we probably deserved it in the end. What was great was Noel (Landers) winning


the


top junior award, he is a great lad and a very good snooker player and he played superbly all week- end. Again the


supporters


from Youghal who trav- elled over to Edinburgh with us were


great, it


means a lot to all the team not just myself and Noel. So we will celebrate this win for some time to come and we are looking for- ward to going to France next year where we will try to defend this win”


@eastcorkjournal / #eastcorkjournal eastcorkjournal Tel: 021 463 8000 • Email: sport@eastcorkjournal.ie • Web: www.eastcorkjournal.ie


land pts 2nd 3rd 4th


‘World Snooker’ was in Edinburgh last weekend to be part of the ‘Interna- tional Challenge Cup’. Maxime said “I want


to congratulate the Re- public of Ireland on a fantastic win, I was so impressed with Brendan Cooney who won eleven out of twelve frames and the whole Irish team were fantastic. The


Locarno


The Republic of Ire- Scotland pts


Northern Ireland pts France pts


Top five Breaks Patrick Wallace (North-


ern Ireland) 113 Ross Vallance (Scot-


land) 108 Philip Brown (Republic


of Ireland) 94 Michael Judge (Repub-


lic of Ireland) 92 Brian Oichoiski (France) 84


Maxime Cassis is the


Chairman of the ‘Euro- pean Billiards and Snook- er Association’ (EBSA) and general secretary of


snooker club was superb and it just shows how im- portant the amateur game is and in my role at ‘World Snooker’ I want to try and bring the two bodies of professional and am- ateur snooker together. I was very impressed with the set up here in Edin- burgh and that is why I invited Jason Ferguson to the tournament to show him what grass roots In- ternational snooker is all about”.


Cassis is a huge sup-


porter of Irish snooker and a very big fan of this tournament which has been involved in since the start, he added “Next year we bring the International Challenge Cup to France for the second time when we go to Dunkerque in Northern France and it will be a great tournament and I am looking for- ward to meeting up with


my Irish snooker friends again. I am aware of the importance of the game in particular in Cork with the ‘Cork Billiards and Snooker Association’ (CBSA) leagues, tour-


naments and champion- ships and I have been to Killarney and follow all the progress of the Cork players in our European tournaments and I want to congratulate


Landers on his play, he was fantastic in the tour- nament and he has a big future in the game”. There


are plans that Noel


there could be another tournament of an Inter- national nature soon to come back to Youghal as players from the North of Ireland, Leinster and Munster will come togeth- er to play a type of ranked ‘Friendship Cup’ which


looks likely to happen in mid-November at the fa- mous ‘Market House’. Cork snooker now is back with the ‘Singletons Cork Snooker Leagues’ back and in full flow


with the CBSA through Karl Busteed, Tony Mur- phy and Lloyd Myers who are hard at work now at the star of the 2017/18 snooker season which will run until next May.


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