New Institute ‘A’ team of Tom Gleeson, Brendan O’Donoghue, Mark Walsh, Mark Gleeson and Noel Gleeson after winning the Munster Club Snooker title, with David Joyce (Macau Casino, sponsor, third from right).

New Institute retain Munster Club Snooker title

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What a roller coaster of a weekend it was for New Institute Snooker Club Nenagh at the Munster Club Championships in Killarney.

This year the club sent four teams to compete. It started off with a bang when the ‘B’ team, captained by Patsy Farrell, and joined by Tony Seymour, Paudie Kelly, Dave Garrett & Andy McCloskey sent shockwaves through the premier division when they beat good neighbours in Limerick’s St John’s ‘A’, going on to reach the semi-finals and a clash with Nenagh’s ‘A’ team.

For the first time ever in the club's history and possibly in the tournaments history, all four teams qualified from their groups, after Stephen Shoer approached the pink ball as if he was teeing off hole 10 in Riverdale and struck the ball with perfection to land perfectly on the black and send our ‘D’ team, captained by David Lynch, into the knockout stages. The team was also made up of Stephen Shoer, Adam O’Brien, Warren Cunningham & James O’Donovan

The ‘C’ team, captained by Liam Kelly, and also containing Mark Coonan, Martin Kelly, Tom Ford, Damien Long & Ollie Cleere had an unbelievable group performance winning all three games without complications only to fall short to Fermoy ‘A’.

The ‘A’ team made up of Mark Walsh (captain), Brendan O’Donoghue, Tom Gleeson, Mark Gleeson & Noel Gleeson won all four group games to earn a place in the semi-finals and a meeting with the clubs ‘B’ team. They came out on top in what was a well-contested match as the ‘A’ team proved too strong and captain Mark Walsh recorded a great win against Andy McCloskey to make sure they got a chance to defend their Munster Championship. And so, they did, going on to beat a strong Youghal ‘A’ team 3-0 to clinch their 12th Munster championship.

The club has never looked stronger with 21 players traveling to compete and doing so very well.

The ‘A’ and ‘B’ teams will return to Killarney next weekend to compete for the All-Ireland Championship, starting on Thursday and live streams can be viewed on the New Institute Club's Facebook page.

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