Another Money Match Confirmed

wonderfullife

Fair play to Terry Rodgers snooker, doing their best to revive the domestic snooker scene! Which to be fair is slowly dying out.

Anyway date tbc (mid-april ish) but reigning All-Ireland Champions Celbridge Snooker Club will take on an Ireland-Amateur Select panel in a €10,000 money match (€5,000 per team):

Teams:

Celbridge: Martin McCrudden, Colm Gilcreest, Joe Delaney, TJ Dowling, John Sutton.

Ireland Select: Michael Judge, Davy Morris, Joe Swail, Paddy Wallace, Rodney Goggins.


Backgrounds:

Celbridge

McCrudden - 3-time amateur champion, world amateurs semi-finalist

Gilcreest - Was a pro for many years, made various tv stages including last-16 Irish Open, made World Amateur Final 2011

Delaney - Pro for over 20 years, made the Crucible tv stages in 2010 (lost 10-2 to Matthew Stevens)

Dowling - 2-time National Champion, european u-19 title 2001, made various quarter/semis at world amateur level.

Sutton - Not as illustrious but integral part of team, originally from England, did win 3 matches in a PTC event last year, beating 2 pros.


Select Team

Judge - Long time pro, made semi-finals of a ranking event, had a peak ranking of 23 (i think).

Swail - Former top-16 professional, made 2 semi-final appearances at Crucible. All around nice guy.

Morris - 3-time national champion. Had some good wins and made some tv stages on pro circuit. Still young enough to have a future in snooker.

Wallace - Made world championship quarter-finals in 2001.

Goggins - 2-time national champion, made a 147 in the world amateur championships and has won European titles. Been on pro tour a few times. Probably the nicest fella you could wish to meet.


All in all it will be a fantastic match-up. Players not playing, but who might have made the select team, David Hogan (unavailable i think), Vincent Muldoon (in America i believe), Fergal O' Brien and Ken still pros.

It's a hard match to call. Swail and Judge are the class acts, but equally on their day they can all beat each other. I'd say maybe 4/6fav Select, 13/8 Celbridge. The Select probably a stronger outfit but Celbridge are a tried and tested team and relatively speaking have "home" advantage as Swail, Wallace are from up north, Morris Kilkenny, Goggins Wexford, whereas all of celbridge will be practising in dublin.

zack01

It has the makings of a classic alright . If I was to have a punt I'd shade the Celbridge team but only just. The reason I'd shade them is they play a lot together, know each others game inside out and they have just defended their all Ireland club crown. On the other hand if the select team hit any form eg Michael Judge and Joe Swail would be down as certainties. Judge since returning to the amateur scene this season has won two ranking titles this season, tournaments that have featured all the celbridge team, whilst Joe Swail as an amateur has regained his pro status by way of the PTC events and as has a ton of experience. That would put the select team strong favs for a 2-0 lead and only needing one out of the remaining three for the match.

Meanwhile McCrudden recently won the Navan pro am which featured all the players so as you can see both teams have a lot of quality.
Another player to watch on the Celbridge team would be John Sutton, a player with a lot of experience and a regular at the business end of ranking tournaments, he was runner up last season in the SnookerBacker Classic beating ex pro and this seasons Classic winner David Gray en route and only just failed to turn pro via Q School.

It will be a fascinating match.

Another money match featuring Ken Doherty v Joe Swail has been confirmed for mid June at a location waiting to be confirmed.

Exciting times in Irish Snooker, it's like the '80's all over again !!

califano

Sounds good. After the Terry Rogers scrum a nominal cover charge may be the way to go?. Otherwise most of the room is populated by bar flies and tyre kickers.

In snooker rooms there are fewer vantage points so it would be good to give someone who pays nominal a €2-€3 cover charge a better chance at seeing some action.
You could always go one further and hire some folding chairs and have two rows of them around the tables.
Something like...

Ringside seats €8
Row 2 €6
€2 for all standing behind the chairs.

Arthurdaly

I'd definitely drop along to this, played against and watched alot of these guys in the 90's.

StephenHendry

same here, its great to have these type of head to head games in local clubs. i do intend heading along to it

carpothepunk

Is it Terrys club who organised this or Sean? Both doing great things in the local scene for both Snooker and Pool. Will try tip along to this.

StephenHendry

its great to have these type of games. looking forward to ken and joe taking each other on in june

zack01

StephenHendry wrote: »

its great to have these type of games. looking forward to ken and joe taking each other on in june

Tony & John are the men behind the recent series of money matches, the Doherty v Swail match is'nt confirmed as far as i know, a location is yet to be finslised.

Since December there has been a drastic upturn in Irish snooker, the club owners seem to be taking matters into their own hands now and with nearly 128 entries in for the CrossGuns / Terry Rodgers 10K Easter Handicap it belittles the paltry entries the main ranking events are recieving.

All we need now is for Ken to win this weeks PTC Grand Finals !

wonderfullife

zack01 wrote: »

Tony & John are the men behind the recent series of money matches, the Doherty v Swail match is'nt confirmed as far as i know, a location is yet to be finslised.

Since December there has been a drastic upturn in Irish snooker, the club owners seem to be taking matters into their own hands now and with nearly 128 entries in for the CrossGuns / Terry Rodgers 10K Easter Handicap it belittles the paltry entries the main ranking events are recieving.

All we need now is for Ken to win this weeks PTC Grand Finals !

Ah come on bit of support for the Outlaw too please Ken or Joe 2 really nice fellas.

Realistically speaking i'd have to suggest if Trump shows the form he's been threatening to show he'll take a lot of stopping. He was unreal in Haikou until the tip incident!

vincenzolorenzo

Where will this match be on?