McNabb is again crowned the Irish Champion of Champions

GARY McNabb joined a fairly exclusive club of players who have retained the Irish Champion of Champions singles title on Saturday when he defeated Colm McHugh 11-6.

Winning the decider meant McNabb became only the second player to retain the title in its current guise and he is now relishing the chance to defend his world title when he travels to Norway in March 2026.

“The first person to retain the title was Eddie Curran from Donegal, so I’m the second person now, which is great but it also means I get to go to the World’s,” explained the Fintona Pearses BC man.

“The other countries are picked, but we have to win our way there, so to get the chance to try to defend my world title is something I’m looking forward to.”

En route to the decider, McNabb came up against his Mid Tyrone Zone team-mate, Ardstraw’s William Boggs, triumphing 9-4 after a tight encounter, which he admits he didn’t particularly enjoy.

“It’s hard playing against a team-mate because you have to treat them as the enemy rather than your friend,” he explained. “There isn’t much speaking – there’s a bit of sportsmanship but you have to keep the foot down.

“It’s a weird one because even if you lost, yes you’d be annoyed, but you’d want him to go on and win the whole thing and finish it out, which I did on this occasion but he had me under pressure a couple of times and I had to pull out a couple of big ones.”

Against McHugh in the final, McNabb knew he was in for a tough time as his opponent has won everything in the game apart from the Irish title.

“If Colm had won that, he would have had all the titles you could ever win, which shows the quality of the players you are up against,” McNabb acknowledged.

McNabb wasn’t the only Mid Tyrone Zone player to achieve success at the weekend as his good friend Stevie Stafford and Aaron Ward also qualified for the World Championships by winning the Paris title.

“It was great to see [Stafford], who I grew up with winning too. It’s just a shame we couldn’t have won it together but it’s brilliant that he got over the line too,” McNabb beamed.

And the Mid Tyrone rinks team almost joined that trio in Norway but Stuart McSorley, Richard Glass, Colin Shortt and Sam Rodgers came up just short against Donegal.

Meanwhile, McNabb and Stafford will both represent Ireland at the Home Internationals in Scotland in a couple of weeks time, with McNabb captaining the main team, while Stafford plays in the A side.