Simons seeking billiards title

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32706, 8 September 1971, Page 14

Simons seeking billiards title

r Canterbury will have three representatives in the field for the New Zealand billiards championship> which will be decided in Matamata next week, and two challengers for the snooker crown, which will be at stake the following week.' E. Simons, who won the New Zealand billiards title for the first time two years ago, will be competing in his sixteenth national tour?

nament, and although beaten in the Canterbury final this year he will be the province’s strongest hope. Simons has prepared for the championship with an eye to striking peak form during it, and this week he expressed satisfaction with the standard of his cueing. He will also be encouraged by the ease with which he has won his recent inter-club matches. Two competitive century breaks of late give further grounds for optimism.

R. O’Callaghan, who beat ;; Simons in the Canterbury; ■ final this year, has been a ■ 1 little out of form since that 1! victory, but he is a proven ]; player at the top level and ; as a semi-finalist two years ; ago must .warrant a chance. < The third billiards en- I trant is B. D. Kirkness, who !; would be a strong prospect;; if he played up to his best. ; However, he has not been ■ ! able to devote the time to '; practice this year that he ;; would have liked and might;; find the going tough. ; > Kirkness will also con-•! test the snooker champion-i! ship and as the current'; Canterbury champion he 1; might be better placed;; here. His powers of con-;> centration are such that;■ even if his cueing should; 1 be shaky he can, by tacti-'! cal application, subject an !; opponent to heavy pressure. I; A. Dryden, who Kirkness ;; beat in the Canterbury;; final this year, is the other;; snooker entrant and, al- h though a most useful potter,; 1 his chances of success against players of the calibre he will meet must be fairly slight.

The championships have drawn all the prominent names in New Zealand billiards and snooker with the exception of the outstanding West Coast billiards player, A. Twohill, who because of business reasons is not competing. L. Napper (Otago), who won the billiards championship last year when Christchurch was the venue, will defend his title; as also will the reigning snooker champion, K. Tristam (Auckland).