The European Men’s Team Championship has been taking place this week in Lithuania.
All three Irish teams taking part have emerged easily from the round-robin phase and are well placed to make a run for the title in the knockout stages.
Ireland 3, comprising Brendan O’Donoghue and Ryan Cronin, are the top seeds following the groups having lost the least number of frames, and they await the winners of Latvia and Lithuania 8.
Defending champions Michael Judge and Robert Murphy for Ireland 1 face Germany 2 while the Ireland 2 side made up of Rodney Goggins and Jason Devaney meet Israel 2.
The competition isn’t especially strong with only one English side – Wayne Brown and Jake Nicholson – and a single Welsh outfit consisting of Andrew Pagett and Alex Taubman in the last 16.
The three Irish teams will each fancy their chances of going all the way to the title for glory.
The second seeds following the groups are Malta, who peculiarly have Alex Borg in their line-up despite the fact that the 47 year-old earned his pro ticket via Q-School in May.
This isn’t the first time that Borg has played in an amateur sanctioned event while being deemed a professional and I confess to having zero idea as to how this is permitted.
The European Masters Team Championship is also nearing its conclusion with Peter Donegan and Nigel Power into the semi-finals for Ireland – where they’ll meet Scotland.
In the Ladies Championship, Irish duo Michelle Sherwin and Claire Mill will take on Germany in the quarter-finals.
Click here to view the draws and information.
With reference to Borg playing in an amateur event , he is not the first professional to play in an EBSA event. Tony Drago has played a few times in these events as well. In fact Drago was runner up in the team event last year playing alongside Brian Cini . ( It seems that Malta are the only country to send professional to EBSA events). The reason the EBSA will give you for allowing professionals to play in the team and masters event is that ” there is not a main tour ticket on offer with those two events ” For me the EBSA are the governing body of amateur snooker in Europe and therefore should only allow amateurs to participate. Letting professionals play for their country in amateur events certainly does not promote the game at grassroots level .
Cheers for the info, Peter – I had often wondered. And I agree, it’s ludicrous to allow them to play.
The title of your article needs to be changed to ” extremely strongly ” as Nigel Power has just beaten professional Alex Borg convincingly on a 3-1 scoreline