Ireland have had some success in recent years in 8 ball pool with the Mens “A” Team losing in the World final to Scotland in 2001 and our under 21 team which included Gary Boylan from Lusk & Ricky Collins from Swords, losing narrowly to Scotland in this years World under 21 team final.

I am the assistant Manager on the Irish Men’s “B” Team and helped Manager Pat Merrigan put together a team which they felt would be competitive for this year’s event. It took 5 months to put the current squad together and the home based players met twice a week for practice sessions and to build up a good team spirit. Some players whom we would have liked in the squad were unable to travel but we were still confident of a good showing. We also had 4 players based in Scotland and England who I kept in contact with during the year.

We had two other lads from North County Dublin on the team, Gary Boylan,18,from Lusk the youngest player on the team and John Cole from Malahide.The team also included Pat Merrigan, Trevor Glass, Mick Flood, Robert Murphy ,John Cooper and Darren Naughton from Dublin.

Jimmy Roche from Offaly, Charlie Ruddy from Donegal who now lives in Ayr. Jim Mc Geachie and George Payton from Glasgow and Jimmy Miller from Sheffield.

The team performed well and we were unlucky not to reach the semi-final stage after the group stages were completed. We lost 17-16 to England in a match which could have gone either way as Manager Pat Merrigan was unlucky to lose the last frame. The damage was done early on when we threw away 3 or 4 good opportunities of winning frames. I was guilty of losing one when after I had potted a good ball and dislodged my only difficult ball the black ball rolled into the middle pocket, which is loss of game. It would be impossible to play the same shot on a pub/club table as these championship tables were much faster as they were top quality and with the heat from the arena and lighting it was like playing on glass. We also lost 18-15 to Wales in a very tight match which was 14-14 at one stage.However all was not lost as there was a Consolation Shield event for the 7 teams which did not make it through to the semi-final of the main competition.

We beat Isle Of Man 26-7 so confidence was high when we faced England in the semi final. In the past 6 years in which I have been involved with the team we have beaten England three times so we were quietly confident even though they had two professional players on their team. We beat them 17-12 and we were never in trouble.We then faced Wales in the final and we knew that it would be tight as we had never beaten them before but the fact that we had run them close two days earlier we knew that we had a big chance.The Welsh team included Roy “The Boy” Mountjoy, cousin of snooker legend Doug Mountjoy.Doug plays on the Welsh pool circuit but he didn’t qualify for their squad.We managed to beat them 17-15 in a great final which was shown live on a local satellite station.

Villa Marina Complex

We lead 6-5 after the first session and I played first in the second session and put us 7-5 ahead. However the Welsh rallied and it was 11-11 after the second session.Pat needed to go for a cigarette break to calm his nerves so he asked me to pick the team for the final session.The first problem which I had was deciding which two guys to leave out as everyone was playing well. So I decided that I would leave out Trevor Glass from Templeogue for starters as he is a complete live wire, one of the funniest guys that I have ever met.So I took him aside and said “Trev, get the crack going and get these lads relaxed, I want you to sing the whole way through this session” So Trevor got the singsong started and the “Fields of Athenry” could be heard around the venue in no time.It definitely did the trick. We were 15-13 down and then the boys from the North County did the business, with John Cole and Gary Boylan both winning to make the score 15-15. Robert Murphy then put us 16-15 ahead before Darren Naughton from Dublin potted the final black to secure victory. I had left Robert and Darren until the end as I had a feeling that the match would go down to the wire and they had done the business for us in the past in tight matches. Welsh Manager Mal Coombe’s was very gracious in defeat ,he said he was proud of his team, but said we were the better team on the day. He put his arms around me at the end and said that was one hell of a game played in the right spirit by two very sporting team’s .He said he was glad it was Ireland that they had lost to and he was delighted for us.We had a great night and we got a couple of bottles of champagne to get the party started.The £350 sterling prize money which we had won ensured that the drink flowed all night. We also had our own cameraman on board this time who had asked to travel with us to make a documentary on the weeks activities. The DVD will be available soon including footage from the final, player interviews, team talks and off the table activities!

The highlight of the week for me was when the players presented Pat Merrigan and myself with engraved carriage clocks in appreciation for our efforts in putting the team together, organizing trials, practice sessions, organizing flights & accommodation and picking a team which would be competitive. It was a totally unexpected but a greatly appreciated gesture. It meant more to me than the glass memento which I received for winning the event.The team spirit was fantastic all week and the best I have ever seen in my 6 years traveling with the team. The finals of the Mens and Ladies teams and individual finals will be shown on Sky Sports on from Oct 24th to Oct 26th.Unfortunately they will not be showing our final as it was played on Thursday night and the Sky cameras got delayed and weren’t in place until Friday morning.

The Men’s Professional event was won by Scott Ross from Scotland .He beat me 4-2 in the second round of 2004 World amateur championships.I never got a shot in 3 of the frames,I knew Scott was good enough to turn pro which he did last year.

We hope that we can build on last weeks experience and keep this team together for the next tournament in April 06 ,The Nations Cup to be held in Bridlington, England. However without proper sponsorship and fund raising events it is difficult for guys to make every event.Also work commitments, family commitments and unforeseen circumstances could also impact on the squad.However I am confident that the squad will just be as strong in future events and I’m sure that the local guys who have performed well for the team in past tournaments namely, Vincent “Binky” Collins & his son Ricky, John Elmore, Kevin Tolan and Jemmy Ryan will be keen to get back on board at some stage if the opportunity arises. We have already secured a sponsor for a new set of waistcoats since we have come back thanks to Mick Flood. Any local businesses who would be interested in sponsoring the team in any way should contact me at 087-2834237 or email me at Adrian.hammond@isoftplc.com.
I will ensure that appropriate logo will be displayed on our waistcoats at future events.

Pool History
Adrian was persuaded to play pool in 1999 by well known local men Fergus “Gonny” Gosson and Ger McGillivray who ran “The Cue Sticks” pool team. He said “It was hard to turn those guys down and it gave me a chance to get competitive again as I had finished playing snooker leagues in 1994.I hadn’t played pool since I was a teenager in Bissett’s Pool hall so I was looking forward to it”. In 2000 he played in trials for the Irish B team in which 36 players played each other over 8 weeks for 10 available places. He won the final trial and finished second in the overall player rankings over the 8 weeks of trials.

In 2001 he helped “The Cue Sticks” win the Fingal Pool League, playing out of “The Cock” in Gormonstown. Teammates were Gonny,Barry&Gerard Gosson, Ger&Paul McGillivray, Bill McGowan, Anto Mc Aleer and Alan Marry. In 2002 he joined “The Star” pub in Swords and in 2004 they won the Dublin Superleague Premier Division having finished runners up in 2003.Teammates included Vincent “Binky” Collins ,originally from Craoibhin Park and who is now living in Swords.

In 2004 he was selected to play for Dublin in the All-Ireland Inter County Championships along with Vincent&Ricky Collins & John Elmore and is looking forward to the new season representing “The Star” and Dublin.

Finally Adrian agreed to put together a report on his snooker memories in the town in the 1980’s when he said there were some very good snooker players in the town. Snooker was played in Bissetts snooker hall, the Commerical Club and Wavin social Club at the time. However he said that it would take some time to do this and he would like to chat to some of his old snooker friends beforehand.