Kirkness Top Seed In Billiards

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32320, 11 June 1970, Page 19

Kirkness Top Seed In Billiards

The quest to find the 1970 Canterbury billiards champion will begin next Monday and Tuesday evenings, the 32 title hopefuls competing in the first round of matches. The 16 winners will qualify for the second round on the following Monday. The quarter-finals being played the next evening, the semifinals on June 29, and the final on June 30. The 32 entries include all of the prominent players in the province, and with the national championship to be held in Christchurch later this winter, the local event takes on special significance ' There are certain to be ; more entries from Canterbury for the New Zealand ■ : championships than can be I accommodated, and as a re-

suit some will have to be eliminated. Form at the Canterbury tournament will almost certainly have a bearing on which players are given a chance at the national title.

The number of Canterbury players who will play cannot be determined until after entries have been received from other areas, but from past experience four would seem a likely number. It is unfortunate that this will mean that some Canterbury players, who would not disgrace themselves at the national level, will be no more than onlookers in September. One player who should have no fears about winning a place in the Canterbury contingent is E. Simons, the present New Zealand champion. However, in the Canterbury championships he is seeded second to B. D. Kirkness.

This apparent anomoly comes about through Kirkness having beaten Simons in

the final of the provincial championship last year, and to gains added weight by the fact that Simons’s lone defeat in club matches this season has been to Kirkness. Simons and Kirkness will again be favoured to contest the final, but R. O’Callaghan and K. Murphy, the third and fourth seeds respectively, are both capable of causing upsets.

If Simons should reach the final it will be the fifteenth time he has done so in the last 16 years; and if he should emerge triumphant it will be his eighth Canterbury title in this period. Kirkness won the title for the first time last year and his brilliant play gained many adherents to his top-of-the-table style of scoring. O’Callaghan has been runner-up at South Island and Canterbury championships, and last winter he made his biggest impact on the national scene when he reached the semi-finals of the

billiards championship at New Plymouth. His club play this season has been sound, as also has that of Murphy, a billiards exponent whose failure to win a provincial or national championship hardly reflects his natural ability at the game.

Other players who could upset the seeded four are the promising young Maori from Kaiapoi, L. Rolleston, and the experienced trio of C. Kelly, G. Foster and R. Franks. Rolleston and Foster will meet in the opening round, so for one of them participation in the tournament will be brief.

The final this year will be different from last season when the association experimented with a two-night session and a target of 1000 points. This proved unsatisfactory and the association has reverted to one session and a target of 166. As usual, the elimination rounds will be over 500 point* l