Desperques provides the silver lining for Guernsey
GUERNSEY’S recent grip on the team snooker inter-insular crashed to an end on Saturday night at the Gremlin Club, where Jersey belied their underdog status to triumph 14-11.
It was only the second time that Jersey have won the match in the six times played under the format revised in 2015, as they matched the same score of their only other success five years ago on Caesarean soil.
That left Guernsey with just one victory in the five match series, thanks to Martyn Desperques’ CI Billiards title win against Aaron Canavan the previous night.
As the two teams descended on the Gremlin Club, Guernsey had high hopes of a third consecutive victory, but they ended up chasing Jersey’s tails for much of the afternoon session.
Only once did the home side take the lead when Glenn Le Prevost added to Desperques’ opener to make it 2-1, but Canavan and debutant Connor Davies were leading the way as the pair won all five matches they played between them.
Canavan showed his class by making breaks of 37, 33 and 32 in yielding just 26 points in his three matches, but it was Davies who played the first of his two turning points in the match.
In the tenth game of the best of 25, he looked to have fluffed his lines when put in for a re-spotted black, but a stretching Le Prevost let him off the hook with a chance to make it 5-5.
By the end of the session, Guernsey trailed 8-6 with only Desperques showing any fluency by knocking in breaks of 81 and 75 to match Canavan’s haul of three wins.
A delayed start to the evening session offered Guernsey supporters the early hope they were looking for as Seb Priaulx and Le Prevost scrapped to close victories, while the Sarnian side’s own debutant, Jamie Le Cheminant, added his second win to level the match at 9-9.
That brought the two island’s number one players back to the tables, but their outcomes could not have been more contrasting.
On one side, Canavan had moved to another gear as he brilliantly picked his way through 14 reds to compile a break of 122 against Priaulx, while on the other, Desperques was embroiled in a forlorn battle to get the snookers he needed to stop Davies getting his fourth win, and tilt the match heavily into Jersey’s favour.
The young newcomer had delivered his next turning point, and Jersey had re-established their two-frame lead going into the single table session for the last five, tension-filled games.
It started with John Skillett registering his first win, but in a dramatic next, Le Cheminant expertly gained the required six-point foul he needed against Matt Cox to stand two balls away from another chance to level the match, only to over screw his white into the middle bag for a disappointing end to an otherwise decent debut.
Jersey were on the brink of victory, which left Le Prevost needing to beat Jeremy Gogan, and when he fluked the green, another lifeline looked to be heading Guernsey’s way. But, having failed to grasp it on that occasion, fortune then swung Gogan’s way with a fortuitous, match-winning pink.
That all but culminated a day in which Guernsey’s vastly more experienced side had huffed and puffed but not broken Jersey’s resolve.
The visitors had shown a quiet determination with the ability to keep their noses in front, and frustrate an underperforming Guernsey outfit.
In the two ‘dead rubbers’ remaining, Davies completed his impressive debut by beating Priaulx to be the only player to win all five matches, while Canavan’s misfortune in going in off the blue when on a break of 49 was fully capitalised on by Desperques’ clinical 45 to leave the pair on four wins each.
The previous night at the Ex-Service Club, Desperques put a run of three CI billiards final defeats behind him to beat Canavan 500-345 and gain some revenge for the defeat that sealed the team billiards final in Jersey’s favour two weeks earlier.
In a slow start to the match, with the balls running unfavourably for both players, they were tied together at 160 apiece, but Desperques stamped his authority by backing up a 30 break with a majestic effort of 113.
Suddenly, there was clear daylight as the players headed into the interval, but upon the resumption, Canavan’s reply of 77 was a stark reminder of what he can do.
Desperques was fully aware though, and with his counterpart restricted to slim pickings, Guernsey’s best billiards player added breaks of 38, 54 and an unfinished 28 to claim the title for a seventh time.
It was Desperques’ largest margin of victory in a CI final, and cemented his place as the most prolific champion Guernsey has produced, but it was just a small ray of light in a disappointing inter-insular exchange.
