Isle of Man Billiards and Snooker Association sent a men’s and masters team to the Home Internationals event at the Northern Snooker Centre in Leeds last week.

Expectations weren’t that high as the men’s team wasn’t quite as strong as in previous campaigns.

A very late withdrawal through illness from the masters quartet left their chances of emulating last year’s win over the Republic of Ireland somewhat remote.

Men

A young Scottish team were first up for the island men in the round robin phase and what a match it turned out. All four team players were to play three frames against their drawn opponents in the best of 12 matches.

Marek Kenny, playing his first match in the event, was beaten 3-0 by a very classy opponent, Steven Wardropper. but he battled hard and took frame two deep.

A determined Darryl Hill claimed a great 3-0 victory over current European Billiards and Snooker Association under-16 champion Jack Borwick. Other vital points came from Dollin Mercer with a 2-1 win against Ayaan Iqbal, his first match win in the competition.

That left Peter Crellin in play, trailing 0-1 against Amaan Iqbal and the match score at 5-5. Crellin guaranteed the Isle of Man at least a draw by winning frame two on the pink and then calmly held his nerve with a clearance of the colours in the decider to nick it on the black, giving the Manx men a fantastic 7-5 win.

Crellin will enjoy having this win on his CV in years to come if young Iqbal achieves his stated aim to become world champion!

Next up for the men were England B where Mercer, on the livestream table, was fast away against the very talented Daniel Womersley and built up a sizeable lead.

Mercer was unlucky with overrunning his position when in the balls and later his opponent laid a horrid snooker, having nearly gone in-off in the process, and the resultant fouls from Mercer turned the frame the Englishman’s way.

Frames two and three also went to Womersley, the latter including a 60 break.

Hill lost 2-1 to Joshua Cooper where at 1-1 the latter restricted Hill to a single point. Three 30+ breaks and some run for Crellin put him two up on Westley Cooper before his young opponent ran away with the final frame.

Kenny picked up a well-deserved point by taking the second frame with great cueing off the middle jaws on frame ball against Jason Tart. Again, Tart showed his class in the final frame but congratulations to Kenny for taking a frame at this level of competition.

Defeat for the Manxmen in the end but a positive result looked possible until the remaining last three frames rapidly went the way of the English. Final score: IoM 4-8 England B.

In their final round robin match, the men needed to win to have a chance to qualify for the championship knockout. On paper this was the toughest match of this stage and so it proved. Liam Davies defeated Kenny 3-0 and had breaks of 80 and 57, while Marc Shaw (67) beat Mercer 2-1 despite another good performance from the latter who felt he could have even pinched it.

Hill lost on the final black 2-1 where Jack Bradford struck 80 in frame two to level, while Crellin was 2-0 down to Alfie Davies but fought hard to grab the last frame on the black - predictably doubled!

This frame left him the highest ranked Manx player in the men’s event, just above Hill. Final score- IoM 3-9 Wales A.

The result left the men to play in the cup (plate) knockout, in the first round of which they ended slightly downbeat when losing 5-1 to Wales B.

Mercer was the only player to register a frame win and nearly won 2-0 having obtained the snooker required before losing on pink.

With Hill and Kenny going down 2-0, the winning target of five frames was reached while Crellin was midway through his first frame.

Masters

The masters team (players aged 40+) went down 8-4 to Wales B in their first match.

With the official reserve (your correspondent) stuck on the motorway, the organisers kindly allowed Crellin to step in but despite having chances in all frames he lost 3-0.

Pete Kirkham and Paul Smyth picked up a frame in defeats but Chris Dagnall was the star performer, taking a decider to win 2-1.

Predictably the following day - having to field an undercooked and under-skilled reserve - they found the going even harder with 10-2 and 9-3 defeats to Northern Ireland A and Republic of Ireland B respectively.

Kirkham did win his match 2-1 against the NI team, but Mike Crook took a hiding from Sean Gray who hit breaks of 44, 68 and 62, while Dagnall, Smyth and Kirkham all fought hard and took a frame apiece against the Republic.

Dropping into the cup knockout, Dagnall was the only frame winner in the masters’ 5-1 loss to Northern Ireland B.

They certainly squeezed in as many tables as possible into the venue, so much so that Dagnall’s backside managed to deflect a ball that was running along the top of the cushion back onto the playing surface of the adjacent table!

Across the way, 1995 world finalist Nigel Bond was compiling a 131 total clearance when playing in the over 55s - he’s certainly still got it.

Disappointingly, both England A (men’s) and Wales B (masters) were unable to field teams for what was effectively the wooden spoon matches for third/fourth place in the cup.

Perhaps they didn’t fancy the job but, whatever the reason, it was a very poor show considering the great time, effort and expense the Manx teams had invested in getting to the event.

The administrators and respective associations need to ensure this doesn’t happen again where on both occasions the Manx teams were at the venue and ready to play so two hollow walkover wins for the Isle of Man.

Regardless of the farcical end, both Isle of Man teams can be proud of their efforts. Ultimately, the men’s event was won by Wales A 7-5 after a titanic battle with England B - the Manx had given both of these teams a good game.

The cup knockout was won by Scotland who the Isle of Man beat on day one, while RoI A took the Masters crown by defeating England 7-4 in the final.

The team would like to thank Isle of Man Sport for contributing towards travel costs, the Cue Zone IoM official practice venue , team manager and referee Ken Kinrade.

Also to drivers Paul, Dollin along with Ken and finally a special mention for referee Dave Kelly who battled valiantly against illness, officiating through the first couple of days before having to reluctantly admit defeat. Hopefully he will be 100 percent soon.