Martin McCrudden got back to winning ways beating David Hogan 5-3 in the first senior of the season. McCrudden had mixed results last season but now looks like he could make a run for the No.1 spot this season after some impressive wins on the way to the final. 

The event was one of the biggest we have had in years with 128 players entering the event so it meant a long day in Carlow on Saturday to get down to the Last 16 for Sunday morning. Play started at 10am with the lower ranked and unseeded players all kicking off the show. We had a number of fairly strong players having to start in the early rounds and none more noticeable than Colm Gilcreest who won his first two matches only to be seen off 3-1 by Brendan O'Donoghue in the Last 64 round. The Last 64 stage also saw No.16 seed David O'Sullivan exit at the hands of Fermoy's Daithi Whelan while No.10 seed Keith Sheldrick was the most noticeable player to exit losing out 3-0 to Carlow's Joe Robinson. 

The Last 32 then saw the biggest scalp to date as No.2 seed Garry Haridman lost out to Colvin O'Brien who produced some superb snooker to see him off 3-1. All the other top seeds survived this round but Sunday morning's Last 16 was a different story as No.1 seed John Torpey lost out 3-1 to Leonard Shanahan and Robert Murphy was beaten by Mark Dooley 3-2.

The quarter finals line up was an unusual one with most of the top seeds gone but one superb match was David Hogan's 4-1 win over team mate Brendan O'Donoghue. This was Hogan's first win over O'Donoghue at this stage of a senior and show's that he could well take that step up this year and challenge for the No.1 spot. In the other matches McCrudden ended Leonard's run while Muldoon and Carl Murphy both progressed also. 

The semi's saw McCrudden lose the first frame against Muldoon only win four on the spin to defeat the current Irish Champion and reach the final. The match is available to view in it's entirety below and we also have a clip of David Hogan having a break of 69 against O'Donoghue in their quarter final match. The other semi final went Hogan's way as he saw of the challenge of Murphy to reach his first final. 

The final saw McCrudden on top until Hogan squared the match a 3-3 only for McCrudden to take the final two frames to take the match and title and more importantly the extra ranking point in what will now be a very interesting race to the No.1 spot with the likes of Torpey and Hardiman keen to claw back the points in the next event this November.