Valerie Maloney from Offaly is our 10th player on the all time list with RILSA, as she has made great progress since joining the Association in 2014.
Valerie is our current Assistant Treasurer on the Board of RILSA and is also part of our Garda Vetting committee.
She won the Inaugural National Intermediate Snooker Championship in 2014 and has been to the top of Intermediate Snooker ever since. She has won two National Intermediate Ranking events and was Runner up in six during this time. On the Intermediate Rankings, she took number 1 spot in 2015 dropped out of the top 8 in 2016 but bounced back to 2nd place in 2017 after a good season. In 2018 we saw Valerie stay in the top 8 at 6th place and fought hard in 2019 to become the second player to hold the number 1 spot for the second time.
National Amateur Tour
While Valerie made great progress on the tour, her best result was semi final place. On the National RILSA Amateur rankings, Valerie’s highest place was 5th last season. She made the top 8 on two other occasions.
At the 2015 International Irish Snooker Open, she won the 6 Red Championship title and returned in 2016 to reach the final again, just to be pipped at the post by Tina Keogh 2-1
Valerie has 5 International Caps for Ireland. She is a recipient of the Griffith Pin award for event attendances.
Billiards Tour
Valerie joined the Billiards Tour in 2017 taking the runner up spot in the National Amateur Championship and finished the 2017 season as number 4 on the rankings.
In 2018 Valerie was to reach two more finals taking the runner up spots on the main tour and finished 3rd on the rankings.
On the Intermediate Billiards Tour, she was runner up in the Championship and won her first National Ranking Billiard event. She took the number 1 spot on the National Intermediate Billiards Rankings for 2018. She was to go on to win two National Intermediate Billiards Ranking events in 2019 and in doing so retained her number 1 spot on the rankings. Along with taking the number 1 spot, Valerie finished a great season taking the National Intermediate Billiard Championship Title. Valerie is the only Intermediate player to hold National Titles in Snooker and Billiards and number 1 in both cue sports in the one season.
Valerie was to reach the finals of two National Amateur Billiards Rankings in 2019 where she is the current number 3 for the second season in a row.
Valerie was part of the inaugural International Ladies Billiards Team that represented Ireland in Wales in July 2019, making history for female billiards. Her highest 30 minute score is 83 to date and is very capable of much higher. Valerie now is concentrating her time towards the sport of Billiards for the moment and we wish her well for the season ahead.
Valerie has a total of 33 Medals, 5 Gold, 9 Silver and 4 Bronze for Snooker with 5 Gold, 7 Silver and 3 Bronze for Billiards which is a fantastic achievement for her.
Congratulations to Valerie on all her success with RILSA to date and we appreciate her continued support, commitment and dedication to female cue sports in Ireland
