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Tuam's Vincent Muldoon
defeated Galway's Stephen
Killoran 3-0 in the final
of the first Under-19
ranking event of the
season in Stephen's home
club of Caesars Palace,
Galway on Saturday
surviving the cull of top
seeds that tool place in
the early rounds. The
event which had a good
entry of 40 players travel
to the Galway club was the
first Under-19 event in
years without David Morris
who had dominated Irish
junior snooker for nearly
4-5 years winning 7 of the
8 Under-19 events over the
past two. The absence of
Morris should have sent he
message to the rest of the
top seeds to step up and
take on his mantle but instead
the opposite happened as
they fell one by one to
local opposition. Galway
are one of the very few
working county
associations at present
and it seems to be paying
off as their youngsters
are improving
dramatically. The first
top junior to lose out was
Under-16 Champion Stephen
Reddington who was beat
3-1 by Tuam's Colin Gannon
then No.4 seed Jason
Carlin was defeated 3-2 by
Ballina's Sean Conway.
Karl Ellis was the next to
go losing out 3-1 to Galway's
Barry Loughnane to end a
bad round for the top
seeds. It wasn't
to stop there however as
Greg Casey the No.3 seed
fell to a superb
performance from Nenagh's
Bernard Casey losing out
3-0 and Sean Conway and
Stephen Killoran continued
there good form beating
Jason Devaney and Colin
Gannon respectively. It
was the defeat of David
Hogan in the quart finals however
that surprised most as he
lost out to Killoran 3-1
and with Conway beating
Gavin Stokes it set up a
all Connacht semi finals
as Muldoon and Boyle had
survived the cull in the
bottom half of the
draw. Muldoon struggled
in the semi's as Boyle
threw everything at him
but eventually ran out a
3-2 winner and Stephen
Killoran managed to come
back from 2-1 down against
Conway as Conway failed to
close out the match and
play the safety game in
the last two frames. The
final was a mismatch as
Muldoon showed what he can
do knocking in breaks of
50+ to race to a 3-0 win
but Killoran will be happy
with his days work as he
put himself in a great position
for a place on the Irish
Under-19 team and maybe
even a spot in the
European Under-19
Championships. Many
thanks go to the club
manager Benny Fahy for his
help on the day and as
usual it was a pleasure to
have the tournament in Caesars
Palace and we look forward
to the Irish Inter County
Championships there in
December.
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