Westmeath Pool Association Notes
On Thursday, 18th of May, over 500 pool players from all parts of the country made their way to the Gleneagle Hotel in Killarney for the biggest Pool event in Ireland – the All Ireland Inter County and Individual Pool Championships fondly known as ‘The Festival of Pool’.
In a year when the Westmeath Pool Association celebrates their 10th anniversary, the Westmeath men’s A team finally got into the winners enclosure with victory in the All Ireland Inter County Shield.
With all the hard work and practice done over the season, the Westmeath 8-Ball Pool Association was represented by 28 players, 11 on the men’s A team, 12 on our men’s B team, 3 on our Ladies team and 2 along with 3 others who were on our men’s seniors team.
The men’s county team event cued off at 4pm on Thursday with all 40 teams playing on 40 Supreme Winner Pool tables hoping to get their Inter County campaign off to winning start.
EARLY DEFEATS
Our men’s ‘A’ team were up against Tyrone ‘A’ in the first match. The team got off to a good start in the match but slowly ran out of steam and despite having good chances to claim victory, they lost out to a 14-12 scoreline.
Our second match was against one of the favourites, Wexford, on Friday morning. Again we got off to a good start going 4-1 up, but weren’t able to capitalise as a string of bad luck meant we couldn’t get into our normal fluent game and so we lost on a 14-9 scoreline.
IMPROVED FORM
These two defeats meant we were knocked out of the main event which put us in to the Shield tournament. While some might think that the Shield event would be easier, it definitely is not, as many of the previous Shield Champions include the current main champions Antrim and the Inter County Cup Champions for 2017 – Leitrim.
With this in mind, the Westmeath team put their heads down and decided they would give this a good effort as it is still a trophy worth winning. So, in their last group match against Down they got a bit of form going by winning 14-10.
In the first of the knockout rounds Westmeath were drawn against Wicklow ‘A’, and on the back of their victory against Down, it seemed like the good form had continued as Westmeath won on a 9-4 scoreline on Saturday morning.
For the semi finals Westmeath had a strong Carlow team to contend with, but again the form was good as they claimed victory with a 9-5 scoreline.
So, Westmeath had qualified for the Shield Final for Sunday afternoon with the 2012 Inter County Champions Cork A being the opposition.
Again, like in previous matches Westmeath got off to a flying start but this time they were able to push it on taking an 8-1 lead after the first session, and despite losing their next 2 frames Westmeath were able to claim the title as Adrian O’Reilly sunk the 8-Ball to win the match 9-3.
The Westmeath team that won the Shield was: Rob Malynn, Sean O’Connor, Damien McCallan, Terence Bracken, Terry Parker, Adam Powell, Pat Farrelly, Dan Jordan, Mark Scally, Mark Lynch & Adrian O’Reilly.
SENIOR TEAM
The Westmeath Seniors Team almost doubled up on the Lake County trophy count as they reached their final, but were unfortunately beaten by a very strong Meath team. The lads should be proud of getting that far as it was their first time to do so. The Westmeath Senior Team was: Pat Farrelly, JJ McVeigh, Philip Hopkins, Graham Temple & Tom Jordan.
MEN’S ‘B’ TEAM
The Westmeath Men’s B team performed well throughout the weekend winning 3 group matches out of five and finishing 3rd out of 6 teams. This also meant that they had to play the Shield tournament, but they were unfortunately beaten at the first fence by Down ‘B’.
The Westmeath ‘B’ Team was: John Brennan, Jamie O’Connor, Keith Mulligan, JJ McVeigh, Darren Morris, Philip Hopkins, Keith Barden, Paddy Rabbitte, David Fuery, Kyle McCallan, Paul Creighton & Graham Newman.
LADIES TEAM IN ACTION
Westmeath had their very first Ladies team at the Inter Counties, which was great to see, but unfortunately they were drawn into a group with former winners of the tournament and were up against it from the start.
With the pressure of their first tournament, they were unable to convert their efforts into wins but this will have been a great learning curve for next year’s event. The Westmeath Ladies Team was: Alison Slattery, Sarah Moran & Dee McVeigh.
10 Year Anniversary
The Westmeath County Association will be celebrating its 10th year on the go. This celebrations will be in The Newbury Hotel. We will be doubling this up as an Awards night. The date for this and exactly what will be happening on the night will be annouced in the coming days.
Next Season
Hopefully the recent successes of the Westmeath Pool team will encourage more players to join the association next season.
