Selfie time at Clubs Hastings on May 10 as Tauranga cueist Lawrence Millington (left) celebrated his fourth North Island Snooker Championships win, with sponsors Will and Shane Wilson, of Wilson Building and Interiors. Millington will return to Hastings for the Hawke's Bay Open in September. Photo / Doug Laing
Selfie time at Clubs Hastings on May 10 as Tauranga cueist Lawrence Millington (left) celebrated his fourth North Island Snooker Championships win, with sponsors Will and Shane Wilson, of Wilson Building and Interiors. Millington will return to Hastings for the Hawke's Bay Open in September. Photo / Doug Laing
A winning prize of at least $2500 will be offered in the Hawke’s Bay Open Snooker Championship this year as enthusiasts look to regrow cue sports on the bigger table in the region.
The increase was announced by Hawke’s Bay Confederation of Billiard Sports (HBCBS) president Wayne O’Donnell at theend of the North Island Snooker Championships, held at Clubs Hastings on May 9 and 10.
He told Hawke’s Bay Today there will be prizes worth at least $7500 across the tournament in Hastings on September 12 and 13.
The announcement got an unhesitant response from London-born now four-times North Island champion Lawrence Millington, a Tauranga real estate marketing consultant, who confirmed he’ll be there – for the standard of competition it will attract, rather than the money.
He said the regularity of weekend open-homes in the day-job restricts the number of tournaments he can play to usually no more than four a year.
Currently ranked No 5 nationally and after points to step up the ladder, he said: “I’ll be here.”
It was effectively an international final in the 32-player North Island tournament, as Millington beat No 9-ranked Auckland player and Egyptian national Hassan Abdalla 3-1 in a best-of-five frames showdown.
The best Hawke’s Bay effort was that of Glen Robertshaw, beaten in a Trophy-section semi-final by eventual section winner Mark Hannah, of Wellington.
The class is expected to go up a level for the HB Open, although it’s first-in, first-served for, again, a draw of 32.
Its quality was shown last year in a final in which rising hope Cody Turner, from Porirua, beat the more-seasoned Mark Canovan, of Canterbury, currently the NZ No 1.
Turner had also beaten Canovan in the New Zealand Open final two months earlier.
Tauranga player Lawrence Millington after beating Auckland player Hassan Abdalla 3-1 in the final of the North Island snooker championships in Hastings. Photo / Doug Laing.
Millington grew up with snooker in England, for a while running a snooker club, and says: “That’s all I ever did. Always, since I was a little boy.”
Millington senses a revival among youngsters, although the pull seems more towards the smaller-table pool, a product of declining accessibility from the days when many towns had snooker parlours, in addition to tables at RSA and workingmen’s clubs.
At Clubs Hastings, part of the cost was that of setting up tables in a club restaurant. It has four permanent tables in a snooker room, but there were once eight on the site.
“I don’t think there are any snooker rooms [in New Zealand] anymore,” said Millington, who is also president of the Pāpāmoa Lions Club, currently involved in a significant fundraising project for the local fire brigade.
Hawke’s Bay players Sam Martin and Dave Judd played in the top 16, Judd seeing out the tournament providing the live-streaming he’s developed.
The challenge for younger players to take up the game was thrown out last October by 16-year-old Riley James, of Waikanae, when he became the youngest winner of the New Zealand Snooker Championship, with a 6-5 win over Abdalla in Auckland.
Doug Laing is a Hawke’s Bay Today reporter with more than 53 years’ experience in journalism, and covering most aspects of news and sports events and issues in Hawke’s Bay since returning to the Napier Daily Telegraph in 1987.
