The Isle of Man Billiards and Snooker Association were well represented at this year’s Home Internationals, which was held at the Northern Snooker Centre in Leeds recently.

The Manx fielded teams in the men’s and masters competitions and, for the first time, the billiards event.

While the men’s side failed to win any of their three group matches in the main event, there were plenty of positives.

The island’s points in a 8-4 defeat by Wales B came courtesy of 2-1 wins for both Peter Kirkham and Darryl Hill. While Dollin Mercer and Brandon Forrester both lost 3-0, they had their chances. Forrester, on his Home International debut, potted well and had two shots at the black for a frame.

A very strong Northern Ireland team were next up and it resulted in another loss, this time 9-3.

Hill recorded another 2-1 win but from a Manx perspective the highlight was Brandon going toe-to-toe with the vastly experienced Raymond Fry and taking his first frame at this level to go ahead before losing 2-1.

Kirkham and Mercer both drew blanks, their opponents Joel Connolly and Patrick Wallace hitting breaks of 113 and 83 respectively.

The final group match ended 10-2 to England A, Hill losing 2-1 to Dan Womersley and Forrester by the same scoreline to Kayden Brierley.

This was another good showing from Forrester, going ahead against a winner of some top amateur events in the UK. Indeed he was the only player to take a frame off Brierley in the group phase.

This meant the Isle of Man were into the plate against the Republic of Ireland. A shock result looked on as the Manx raced into a 4-1 lead and only one frame from victory thanks to a 2-0 win for Hill (70 clearance) plus points from Kirkham and Mercer.

However, the Irish clawed it back to 4-4 and it went into a sudden-death decider.

Hill went up against Ryan Cronin, the same opponent he’d defeated earlier, but this time the result was different. Cronin played a near-faultless frame to secure his side the win 5-4. Despite the defeat, it equalled the team’s best result at the tournament.

The over-40s masters team of Paul Smyth, Chris Dagnall, Shaun Roberts and the busy Kirkham, who played in both categories, got off to a great start as they drew 6-6 with Wales B.

Kirkham raced away with his match 3-0, Roberts took a point and Smyth won a decider with some pressure pots on the colours.

Unfortunately the next two matches ended in 10-2 defeats but once again Kirkham took a win, 2-1 against Shaun Wilkes from a very strong England team.

Kirkham and Roberts then took single points off of Northern Ireland A.

Up against Scotland in the plate semi-final, Dagnall found some form just at the right time and with breaks of 27 and 35 won both of his frames.

Kirkham and Smyth took one apiece and the IoM were 4-3 ahead. Roberts was the hero as he somehow held himself together in a thriller, dropping in a tricky pink for a famous win as Masters made the cup final for the first time.

That was a re-match with Wales B which took place almost immediately after the semi-final. Perhaps the island players could have done with a moment or two to re-group as they fell to a 7-2 loss, with single frames for Kirkham and Smyth.

Special mention for the efforts of Kirkham. Due to a withdrawal, he played in both events winning 11 of 24 frames which isn’t bad at this level.

England went on to win both men’s and masters championship events.

It was a late decision to put a team into the billiards competition and expectations weren’t exactly high with Chenji Ratnavel, Smyth and Mike Crook volunteering to give it a go. Only Ratnavel had any experience of playing ‘off island’ and that was in Madras in 1979.

Whilst the threesome opened up with a bit of a hiding off eventual runners-up Republic of Ireland, the next match against Wales was closer.

Although it was another defeat, a last-gasp break of six from Ratnavel gave him a first win, 168-162 and the team some confidence going into their last three group matches the next day.

That started with a 2-1 defeat against Scotland, but Crook won for IoM.

England C were next up. Smyth got off the mark with a convincing win 202-77, while Crook had a five-minute purple patch, coming from behind to win 172-152.

Ratnavel withheld a late fightback to make it 3-0, winning 170-165.

The last group match was against Jersey and, although two of the matches were close, it ended 3-0 to the Channel Islanders.

Once again it was into the plate competition with opponents Republic of Ireland B.

It wasn’t the end though as Crook and Smyth both won to give the island a second match win to put them into the semis.

England B were the opponents. Crook lost heavily, Ratnavel won again and Smyth was only seven points from putting the island into the plate final as the Manx lost 2-1.

England A went on to lift the championship title - their team included two of the top players in the world, Rob Hall and Peter Sheehan.

Speaking about the event, Crook said: ‘It was an amazing experience, the billiards community is certainly very friendly and hopefully this will spark more interest in the game locally and we can get more representation at Leeds next year.

‘Thanks to all three squads for their hours of practice and the way they conducted themselves throughout and it was good to see some positive results which although modest were our best on this stage.

‘Last, but not least, big thanks to our travelling snooker referee, Dave Kelly. He was on his feet for around nine hours each day, sometimes covering four tables at once. Well done Dave.’