National Billiards Final Murray v Doyle

Celbridge Snooker Club was the familiar venue for the qualifiers of the National Senior Billiards Short Format Championship that took place on Sunday 25th February and was played down to the semi finals which saw familiar players in reigning champion Wayne Doyle and current No.1 Aidan Murray book their final meeting once again for finals weekend at the SBI HQ in May.

14 players participated on the day with some very impressive results that included Wayne Doyle winning all his matches in less than an hour without dropping a frame, in his semi final win against his brother Ross he compiled the highest break of the day with 97 unfinished to make the final in May.

Aidan Murray didn’t have much trouble on his way to booking the final spot when he accounted for the former multiple National billiards champion Eugene Hughes 3-1 before getting the better of Jason Dowling who made an 89 break in his 3-0 first round win against Lloyd Myers. Jason came from behind to steal the first frame against Aidan to go 1-0 up but Aidan settled down soon after to win 3-1 despite not playing at his best but always seemed to be in control in each frame as Jason struggled to maintain the good start he got.

This will be the 12th meeting between Wayne Doyle and Aidan Murray in a Nation Senior Billiards final and the 5th in the Short Format and it promises to be another thrilling encounter between the two dominant players of the last 10 years on the Irish Billiards scene.

Thanks to Phil Martin and Celbridge Snooker Club on hosting a successful event and John Kehoe as Tournament Director. The next billiards event is the National Senior Billiards long-up championship to be played at the SBI HQ in Carlow on Sunday 10th March.

Pre Quarters:

• Eugene Hughes  3-2  Tommy Murphy
• Joe Doheny  0-3  Anthony O’ Flaherty
• Lloyd Myers  0-3  Jason Dowling
• Wayne Doyle  3-0  Robert McCrum
• John Kehoe  3-0  Aonghus McAnally
• Ross Doyle  3-1  Brendan Devlin

Quarter Finals:

• Aidan Murray  3-1  Eugene Hughes
• Anthony O’ Flaherty  0-3  Jason Dowling
• Wayne Doyle  3-0  John Kehoe
• Ross Doyle  3-0  Larry Drennan

Semi Finals:

• Aidan Murray  3-1  Jason Dowling
• Wayne Doyle  3-0  Ross Doyle

Final:

• Wayne Doyle v Aidan Murray

 To be played on finals weekend on 18th/19th May at SBI HQ.

Breaks:

• Wayne Doyle  94unf, 74, 60unf, 53 unf.
• Jason Dowling   89
• Eugene Hughes 63
• Larry Drennan   52
• Ross Doyle   51, 52.