Elated Quinn earns long-awaited first title

IT took longer than he would have liked. There have been several near misses. But Fergal Quinn finally broke his Northern Ireland Ranking Tournament duck on Tuesday night of last week at Blackstaff Snooker Club in Belfast where he defeated Anto Heaney 5-3 in the final of this season’s second event.

The Brockagh man has previously been in four finals, losing them all, and he’s regularly featured in the last eight and semi-finals but until last week title success had eluded him.

But on Tuesday night he got the monkey off his back and in some style too as he raced into a 4-0 lead thanks to some solid break-building, including a stunning 115, his third century of the event, in frame three.

“It has been a long time coming,” he admitted. “I had been in four finals, lost two to Patrick [Wallace, from Dungannon], one to CJ Anderson and in that same club two years ago I lost 5-4 on the black, having been 3-1 up and missed black to win the first frame, so I could have been 4-0 up in that one too!

“I played very well in the first four or five frames [on Tuesday]. I had a 55 in the first, 53 in the next and 115, then I missed a bad red on 24 with another century sitting there, but luckily Anto let me off the hook there in that frame to still go 4-0 up.”

It wasn’t plain sailing after that, however, as Heaney battled back by winning three frames on the bounce to make a real contest of it before Quinn, who had to dig deep, using the experience of four previous final losses, got over the line after a prolonged safety battle in frame eight.

“Anto did play very well as well,” the 24-year-old Tyrone man acknowledged. “And to be honest, a couple of years ago I probably would have panicked. But now I don’t panic because I just don’t care if it goes 4-4. It is what it is, it’s just another frame of snooker.

“If you’re missing your chances it’s different, but I felt that any chance I got, I was scoring well enough so I was just thinking ‘keep at it and see what happens’. I wasn’t thinking too much about it but it was a relief in the end and it was nice to get it over the line.”

Having got his hands on a first NI Ranking title, Quinn is hungry for more and he still harbours ambitions to make it onto the main professional tour having come close in recent years but he knows he needs to be not only more consistent, but happy with his game.

“I’ve fallen at the second last round at Q-School in each of the last two years,” explained the Darlington-based cueman who had to fly home three times to compete in the Blackstaff event.

He continued: “It’s a real high level and I’ve done well but I’ve never really took that into my play in Ireland or Northern Ireland, so it’s nice to start playing more consistently.

“I’ve always got results, but I never felt like I was playing well, that my game was anywhere near where it should be but hopefully now – I need to start trying to dominate in Northern Ireland if I have any ambitions of getting near the tour.

“I need to be dominating and doing what Robbie [McGuigan] and what Patrick [Wallace] have done over the years.”

Fergal will now switch his focus to the Drumaness Masters early next month before he travels to Austria for the next Q-Tour event.

Meanwhile, Quinn, who has moved up to fourth in the overall NI rankings, had won his last-64 clash with Mark Boyd 3-0 and then his last-32 encounter with David O’Neill 3-1 before ousting Joel Connolly 3-0. He then won his quarter-final and semi-final without dropping a frame against Shea Valentine of Drumaness and Newry’s Kieran McMahon respectively, but there was no such luck for the remaining Tyrone combatants.

Dunamanagh’s Jamie Gardiner won 3-0 over Liam O’Neill in the last-64 before losing 3-1 to Brian Milne in the next round, while Patrick Wallace surprisingly lost 3-2 to Kieran McMahon in the last-32. Dermot Loughran, meanwhile, won 3-2 over Shea Moore and 3-0 over Ryan Hughes but lost 3-0 to Paul Sweeney in the last-16.

And Castlederg’s father and son, Gary and Darragh Arkinson both lost to Stephen Ferguson in the last-32 and to Chris Ferguson in the last-64 respectively, while Dermot McGlinchey exited at the hands of Danny Boyle 3-2 in the last-32.