Under 21s Event 1 Results

This season’s journey for the under 21’s started with a visit to the Wexa where Lee Walker and the staff there made everyone welcome. All competitors arrived on time and all were very well turned out.

With all 16 competitors and 4 tables in use, the first round was ideally split into 2 halves, with a roll off- roll on basis. From the 8 matches 6 of them provided 3 v 0 victories as Bradley Tyson beat Jack Taylor, Liam Davies beat Conor Caniff with a early 61 break to set out his stall. Rhys Morgans beat Jacob Boyle whilst in the bottom half Dainton Barrass hit what turned out to be the highest break of the day with a 77 in his win over Jack Annalls. Ollie Briffett Payne following on the back of his U18’s win the previous week dispatched Bradley Ferguson and Dylan Emery like Liam setting down a marker of intent with a 42 break in his win over Riley Powell. Luke James took his game to 1 all with Zak Cosker, but Zac took the 4th frame on the black to secure the 3 v 1 win. The stand-out game of the round was a 2 hour, 5 framer between Ryan Bowgen and Cairan, with Ryan coming out on top in the end 3 v 2.

Into the Quarter’s and on live stream, Liam proved too strong for Bradley with Liam securing a 3 v 1 including a 48 break. Rhys Morgan trailing 1 nil down then produced 3 solid frames on the bounce securing frame 3 with a break of 40 and going on to take the match with a 62, though in his own words the ton was on! The other 2 quarter finals showed Ryan’s grueling last 16 match certainly hadn’t taken anything out of him as he dispatched Dainton 3 v 0 and Dylan took just 35 minutes to secure a 3 v 0 win over Ollie including an excellent 72 to seal the win.

Both Semi Finals started at 3pm with Liam’s game against Rhys on live stream. Rhys struggled to cope as Liam compiled breaks of 64 and 43 in the opener and took the 3 v 0 win with and excellent 60. In the other Semis, the opening 2 frames were shared between Ryan and Dylan with Ryan playing some audacious pots crunching the pocket leather’s but Dylan’s all-round game was too strong in the end with him taking the victory in 70 mins winning 3 frames to 1.

Into the final, again on live stream and a quality encounter between the 2 inform players Liam and Dylan. Dylan opened his account with a quality 66 in the first with Liam returning with a superb 73 of his own to share the opening 2 frames. A 49 in the 3rd gave the advantage to Dylan and then trailing by 33 with 1 red and the colours left in the 4th Liam’s class shown through with an excellent long red followed by the black and the clearance was on. A slight error on the blue to middle made for an awkward pink with no way of being able to get nicely on the black. With the pink successfully rolled to the heart of the top pocket, Liam was left with a long 10 foot cut on the black playing the cue ball from baulk. A valiant attempt but the clearance was to be denied as the black remained in the jaws of the pocket ready for Dylan to hold his nerve and secure the match 3 frames to 1.

It is clear Liam and Dylan are great rivals with the upmost respect for each other’s game and I doubt this will be the only final they contest this season. They are both a credit to Welsh snooker and it is a case of when not if they both join the main world tour.