Cyril Stringer Snooker Cup

Saturday 17th January 2009

Welcome to the Snooker Blog, as you can see we have gone hi-tech this year !

Group games are all well under way with some, like Robert Stringer, Keith Stringer, Colin Watchorn, Ross Reynolds and Brendan Power already completed.

Still to finish are Derek Holmes, Peter Valentine, Tom Shortt, Paul Gaffney, Gerry Reynolds, Mervyn Garrett, Angus Stringer and Corrie Adams.

Cogratulations to our first ever female participant, Niamh Murphy, who was involved in tight finish to

Group 5.

Most groups will be played over two nights with 7 games each night and it always takes longer than thought to get it all done. Some people manage to do it all in one session though and well done to Ross Reynolds and Brendan Power on this. I understand that Corrie Adams group will be done over a marathon session tomorrow Sunday 18th at Leabeg.

This year's Group captains are:

Group 1 Keith Stringer

Group 2 Gerry Reynolds

Group 3 Brendan Power

Group 4 Colin Watchorn

Group 5 Ross Reynolds

Group 6 Tom Shortt

Group 7 Angus Stringer

Group 8 Peter Valentine

Group 9 Robert Stringer

Group10 Derek Holmes

Group11 Mervyn Garrett

Group12 Corrie Adams

Group13 Paul Gaffney

and all Group games must be completed by Friday next 23rd January and all score sheets and entry fees must be returned to either Gerry Reynolds or Keith Stringer.

We will have identified 13 pairs from the Group games and will draw a further 3 pairs from the best 6 runners up across all groups to generate 16 pairs for the knockout phase.

The draw for the knock out phase will be held in The Castle Inn Newcastle on Saturday 24th January at 9pm.

Early qualifiers include:

Stephen Houlihan and Robert Stringer

John Kennedy and John Stephenson

Jason Phillips and Paul Cleary

Paul Murphy and Robert Clarke

Peter Evans and Andrew Fennell

The tighest finish so far has been in Group1 where John Kennedy ended with 19 points after 6 wins from 7 games and both John Stephenson and Keith Stringer secured 5 wins from 7 games with 17 points each. John qualified for the knockout phase by virtue of a superior "points difference" beating Keith by just one point 104 to 103.

Next week we have Angus Stringer's Group finishing on Monday 19th at Ballyloughlin, Paul Gaffney's Group concluding same night at Leabeg, Gerry Reynolds Group ending on Tuesday 20th at Sunrise as does Tom Shortt at Leabeg on same night. On Wednesday night 21st January the action will be at Sunrise for the completion of Derek Holmes' Group and Mervyn Garrett will finish on Thursday 22nd at Ballyloughlin.

Good luck to everyone involved.

We will post all the results here when the Groups are finished.

Hope to see everyone on Saturday next at the Castle Inn for the draw.