The Noel Murphy Shield was up for grabs as the National Masters Championship got underway at the RILSA Academy. Noel was a great supporter of the ladies game for many years and travelled throughout Ireland attending events to help out by refereeing throughout the tournaments. Noel gave of his time freely to female cue sports and is fondly held in high esteem and remembered by all those who knew him, a true gentleman and is sadly missed by all involved.
Margaret O’Driscoll from Kerry won the National Masters Championship at the RILSA Academy Sharkx Newbridge recently, in a closely contested final against Annette Newman from Carlow.
In the round robin stages of the event, the title would go to the player with the most wins or frames depending on the outcome.
In session 1 Annette Newman from Carlow took on Valerie Maloney from Laois in their two frame match, while Valerie had chances to take a frame, it was not to be as Annette played well to take both frames. Margaret O’Driscoll from Kerry and Tina Keogh from Offaly had a good match with Tina getting close to levelling the match but again Margaret showed her experience to take both frames.
Session 2 saw Margaret continue her good form against Valerie taking the two frames to keep ahead of Annette. Tina had a good chance to take frame 1 but Annette held firm to take it and went on to play good snooker in the second to level on scores with Margaret.
The last session saw Tina and Valerie level 1-1 at the end of their match so it was all down to the match between Annette and Margaret to see who would take the title. Frame 1 was a low scoring one and could have gone either way but Margaret potted blue to black to take it. Frame two went to the wire again with both players on 44 each after a foul by Annette and Margaret potting the brown and blue there was now 19 in it with Annette needing a snooker to go to a re spot however after a number of good efforts to get a snooker it would take a good long pot on the pink for Margaret to take the frame, match and title of RILSA Masters Champion 2021.
Congratulations to Margaret on her win and to Annette on a fine performance. Thanks and well done to Tina and Valerie for their support and participation. Thanks to Bernie, Paul and staff of Sharkx for their help and support as always.
