Alan was first away against their best player, John Byrne. John is a very useful player and Alan plays a bit of an open game which was always going to give John a chance or two. So it proved with John making a couple of useful breaks to build up a healthy lead. Fortunately, Alan managed to clear the last four colours which always makes such a huge difference in cup games and kept the difference down to just 10.

On the other table, Ian was having a real struggle against Andy Niblett. Andy is a decent player and he potted some nice balls early on. Ian could not get going at all and was getting more and more frustrated with himself and with his lack of running. However, he kept the defeat down to reasonable proportions and with Mark on next against their weakest player, then we had a chance of clawing our way back into it.

Mark was very much hot and cold again, potting some lovely balls, but also missing one or two that he would never miss in practice. He was complaining about the cue ball. However, he was always going to win, the only question was by how many and he actually managed to win by 60, giving Paul a small advantage of 7.

Paul played Brian Niblett who has tended to be a bit of a bogey player for himin the past. Fortunately, Brian gave Paul a couple of early chances from which he built up a useful, but by no means commanding lead. He then came back into it and the frame was then very close through to the end. As with Alan, the final colours made all the difference. He rattled the blue in a corner pocket and it ran across over the opposite corner. Paul potted that OK and managed to add the pink too. Then after another short safety battle, he double-kissed the black, leaving it easy for Paul.

Luke was our last player to play and had to protect a lead of 26. Again, he was given an early opportunity and built up a useful lead but this time his opponent, Troy could not make much of an impact on the lead and he actually conceded with two reds left on the table.