James, Max & Conor qualify for Irish Senior Classification Finals!
Six excited Ormeau players set off at the crack of dawn in the Adam Smith ‘Metallica’ mobile to play in the Irish Senior Men’s Classification qualifier on Sunday.
Preparation was not ideal with ‘Enter Sandman’ still ringing in the players ears and arriving to learn they had no time for a warm up, no names will be mentioned, we should know by now!!
9 places were up for grabs so optimism was high and the guys were ready after a hard Summers training. These 9 qualifiers would join 7 higher ranked players in a top 16 play off competition next Sunday.
Ormeau’s most successful players on the day were James and Max Skelton who both won 5 out of 5 matches to go through as winners. The young brothers should be very proud of themselves and can now test their skills against the best Senior Men in Ireland.
Conor Nugent will wonder how he didn’t achieve the same feat as James and Max as he led Kristionus Dapkus 2/1 and 9-4 but unfortunately lost 11/8 in the 5th. Conor to his credit, picked himself up to defeat Shane O’Connor to go through to next weeks showdown. Conor was playing some breath-taking stuff and probably became a little complacent against Kristionus, he will learn from and this and will be excited about playing next Sunday.
Allen Robson was on a practice mission to get ready for next weeks 6 Nations in Perth and he qualified as a runner up in the first group but was eliminated when losing 12/10 in the 5th set against a good new German UCD player Voss who qualified for next Sunday.
Dawid Sulkowski won his opening group in good style but then lost 3/0 to club mate James in the second group. Dawid then unfortunately lost out 12/10 in the 5th to Ciaron O’Donoghue in a play off decider, he will bounce back!
Conor Smith played very well and qualified to the 2nd group where he lost to Joey Nelson and Ciaron O’Donoghue. Great to play these top players and Conor will learn from these experiences.
Julian Kelly lost out in a very tough first group which included the top seed Dillon Byrne. Julian was playing some good stuff in the Consolation and is progressing well after coming back from a long injury!
Ormeau was also represented by our two girls Anna and Lucy in the Women’s classification event which consisted of one large round-robin group. On the day it was Lucy who finished the higher in 5th position with wins over Thuy Lyhn, Amanda Taylor, Laura Finn and Nicole Larmour. Anna finished in 7th with good wins over teammate Lucy, Nicole Larmour and Amanda Taylor. Overall good performances for our cadet girls and we will see more of them this year in the senior events!
By Allen Robson
