Kirkness eyes 1000 break

Press, 23 February 1978, Page 32

Kirkness eyes 1000 break

A few years ago Brian Kirkness, the current New Zealand billiards champion, was more than happy when he made a break of 100.

Nowadays century breaks are common place for Kirkness and the tremendous improvement that he has brought to his play in the last year was emphasised when recently in a practicd game he put together a break of 529, his highest and almost certainly the highest made by a New Zealander with the exception of the great professional, Clark McConarchy. Kirkness has also passed 400 three times recently and it seems only a matter of time before he improves on the New Zealand tournament play record of 304 he com-

piled at the world open championship in Christchurch last December. His next major tournament is the New Zealand Masters at Pukekohe at Easter. The 529 was made entirely at the top of the table, where Kirkness has altered his style of play to score more heavily from potting the spotted red — four or the allowed five times before switching to a cannon. Kirkness acknowledges that he will still have bad games and get beaten, but his progress of late has given rise to a fresh ambition: a break of 1000.

"After all,” he says, “if you can score 500 you should be able to reach 1000. It’s only a matter of maintaining concentration.