The New Institute's Tom Hogan looks to follow in his brother David's footstep's as he won his first National Title at the weekend and captured the first Under-14 Ranking event of the season in Carlow. A small entry of only 14 players made it to the first event but with the majority of last years players going overage it was not totally unexpected. 

However all the favorites did attend and most made it out of their groups with the possible exception of Ross Doyle and Michael Hennessy who failed to qualify. 

Josh Boileau would have been one of the pre event favorites and he did not disappoint beating Jamie Moore 2-0 to reach the semi's where he overcame Glen Doyle 2-1. Doyle had earlier defeated the impressive Aaron Tobin from Youghal who could go very close this year also. In the other half Tom Hogan reached the final with good 2-0 wins over both Mark Flaherty and Dylan Scully.

He found the final tougher going however but eventually ran out a 3-2 winner over Boileau to pick up the first event of the season. The remaining five events will surely throw out a few more winners in this category especially with the likes of Boileau, Doyle, Tobin, Moore and the young Ross Doyle all waiting for their chance to capture a title.