This week I had a great honour to coach and manage the Ireland Senior team of Brendan O Donoghue, Rodney Goggins, Greg Casey, Johnny Williams and Robert Redmond to win the prince of Wales Home International Perpetual Shield. The event was held in Pontins in Prestynn, North Wales where Ireland faced England, Wales A, Wales B, Scotland and Isle of Man in one of the most prestigious team events in the world.
Ireland had only ever won the event three times in their history in 1993, 2000 and 2001 and this year’s teams now write their own names into the record books with an unbelievable performance from everyone on the team. The week previous to the championship in Wales RIBSA held a training camp weekend with my academy professional player Fergal O Brien in the Ivy Rooms SC Carlow to fine tune the team.
They played frames against Fergal and were coached by myself and we both advised the team on how to prepare for the championships and the team repaid the Republic Of Ireland Billiards & Snooker Association for holding the camp with the title. In the Home Internationals the Irish team demolished the Isle of Man team 11 frames to 1, next we beat Scotland 7 frames to 5. We then came up against a very strong Wales B team and lost 5 frames to 7. The team managed to refocus to beat the Wales A team 8 frames to 4 and we finished off in style to beat England 7 frames to 5 to secure the title.
I have now had the honour of coaching and training three teams to win the Home Internationals title as I was the coach back in 2000 and 2001 and working with this team is one of the highlights of my career as the team spirit and commitment was superb. Click to watch the presentation in Pontins
