Limerick's St John's claim prestigious Munster Snooker title

AFTER 40 years of trying the St Johns Club based in Limerick's Mulgrave Street are Munster Snooker Champions for the very first time after a very hard-earned victory down at the Glen Eagle Hotel in Killarney. 

The St Johns team managed by Limerick snooker legend Morgan Hayes comprised of Albert Hogan from Adare,  Kevin McMahon from Ballinacurra Road,  Tommy O'Donoghue from Croom,  Anthony Cronin from Janesboro and Jason Keegan from Raheen.   

The Championship competition featured 20 club teams from around Munster drawn into 5 groups of 4 teams each.

Each team of five players, play a best-of-three frame match against their respective opponents with the first to 3 from 5 matches winning each tie. 

St John's journey started with the team topping their group with fines 3-0 wins over Thurles and Fermoy and a hard tough 3-2 success on the final pink by Albert Hogan to beat a tough Waterford side to qualify for the quarter-finals, where the Limerick side faced Cappaquin.

After an impressive 3-0 win, the Cue Club Killarney awaited in the semi-final for St John's. This was very tough match against an experienced Killarney side, but St John's pulled out the wins in two tight matches to win 3-1 with Anthony Cronin and Tommy O'Donoghue playing superb snooker. 

In the final, St John's faced a highly fancied Crucible Club team, who have several fine young players in their side, including the current U21 Irish champion. 

In an excellent final, both teams played really well and gave it everything. Crucible took an early lead winning on table one. St John's then levelled with a fine win by Tommy O'Donoghue who was probably the player of the tournament.

Jason Keegan followed up for St Johns with an excellent 2-0 win on table four. This left two remaining matches, Albert Hogan was level at 1-1 and the team captain Kevin McMahon 1-0 up in their respective matches. 

With an enthusiastic St Johns and Crucible crowd in attendance, it was all on the line with each ball being of the highest importance. 

McMahon got a chance for the match in the second frame and coolly dispatched the final pink to secure the title with a 3-1 victory for St Johns to great scenes of joy from the St John's crowd. 

The win is testament to the fine work being done by the St Johns House and Sporting Committees who have worked hard to put in new tables and improve playing conditions in recent years. 

St John's had four team at this year's Championships with the St Johns team of Frank Sarsfield, John Torpey, Mark Tuite, Thomas Hickey, Tom Constable and Mark Gleeson reaching the semi-final of the premier competition where they lost narrowly to All-Ireland Champions, Crucible of Cork.

St Johns were also represented in the championship section by Adam Rowan, Brian Murphy, Tom Treacy, Ray Cantwell, Adam Finnan and Shane Sexton who qualified for a quarter-final playoff, but lost narrowly to Cue Club Killarney. 

The fourth St Johns team of Mark Reddan, Ronan Mc Mahon, Ryan O'Callaghan, Ger Lynch and  Jack O'Brien had some good performances but lost out at the group stages.  

The championship and premier teams qualified as Muster representatives for the All Ireland Championships on again in Killarney next week, best of luck all.