St. Patrick’s seize the moment and take out Crossgar

ST PATRICK’S lifted the Rodgers Cup after taking care of business against Crossgar in a well-attended final in Drumaness on Sunday night.

League chairman Seamus McGivern oversaw the draw which paired Jimmy Victor McLoughlin with Kenny Campbell and Chris Johnston with Robert Pollock in the first two matches.

Crossgar were looking to Campbell to eat into St. Patrick’s 145 point team advantage. However, McLoughlin was soon breezing round the table and starting to build on that lead.

Campbell couldn’t get going and it seemed that every time he missed an opportunity, McLoughlin was left with easy openers, which he was only too happy to accept.

A series of 20 plus breaks saw McLoughlin edge towards the finishing line, while Campbell fought gamely to get into the tie. In the end, it was Jimmy Victor by name and victor by nature, as he came home a 200 to 163 points winner.

On the other table, newcomer Chris Johnston had the better of the opening exchanges and had soon built up a handy 20 point lead over Robert Pollock.

Realising that Campbell was struggling in his match, Pollock got his head down and at the halfway mark had clawed back the deficit to lead by a few points.

As so often happens, Johnston then hit a barren patch and Pollock took advantage to build up a useful 50 point lead.

It looked at one stage that Pollock would run away with this one, but Johnston dug in and weighed in with back to back breaks of 16 and 19 to get 169 on the board, as Pollock’s final pot red saw him over the line at 200.

The combined effect of these results saw Daniel Kelly well placed at 151 points ahead, as he limbered up for the final match against John Weston.

Weston got the first few points on the board. However, a couple of uncharacteristic misses on routine cannons allowed Kelly in for a few settling scores as well.

Weston continued to add to his tally as he reached the 80 point mark, but so too did Kelly as he reached 49, one score short of the 50 points required for overall victory.

Weston suddenly found the sweet spot on the cue ball to stroke a lovely 56 break, and the watching spectators almost dared consider he was going to pull off the comeback of all times.

And when Kelly missed the simplest of in-offs immediately after, Weston was on 144 and another 56 would have done it.

However, the glimmer of hope was short-lived and when Weston broke down again, Kelly gratefully sank a 6-point combination shot and the match was over.

Seamus McGivern congratulated the Ards men on their worthy win and commiserated with Crossgar as he invited the cup sponsor Gary Rodgers to present the beautiful cup.

A delighted McLoughlin accepted the trophy, only then to be diplomatically reminded that the win meant St. Pat’s were now minus 100 points for the next cup. Meanwhile Marty Singh was in the background, dishing out the tea and apple tart.

ST. PATRICK’S, NEWTOWNARDS 399

CROSSGAR 337

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