Michael Judge won his second Irish ranking event of the season with a dramatic 4-3 victory over Rodney Goggins in the RIBSA Masters on Saturday.
The 40 year-old was a stalwart of the professional Main Tour for 20 years before dropping off the circuit in 2011.
The following year Judge took a sabbatical from the sport but returned to claim the National Championship in 2013.
Since then, he has been consistently near the top of the amateur scene in Ireland and victory at the Ivy Rooms in Carlow yesterday adds to The President’s Cup trophy he captured back in December.
In the final, the former world no.24 came up against the top ranked player Goggins and the affair was a typically tight tussle.
With the scores locked at 2-2, Goggins made a break of 54 to edge to within one frame of a third ranking event success for himself in what has been a dominating campaign so far.
However, Judge responded with a run of 76 in the penultimate frame to level the scores and duly took the decider to capture glory.
Earlier, Goggins had defeated Anthony Bonnar 3-1 in the semi-finals with Judge overcoming Josh Boileau by the same scoreline.
With Nenagh’s Brendan O’Donoghue losing 3-2 in the quarter-finals to Boileau, Judge replaces him in second place in the rankings with two events remaining before the season-ending National Championship.
However, Goggins remains way out in front and only a major slip up from the 147 Wexford cueman would prevent him from beginning that championship as the top seed.
The full rankings can be viewed to the right ———————————->>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
