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Sponsor Simon Carter presenting the trophy to Chris, watched by Bernard Neal (Photo: Ian Lines)

Men's Final Commentary

Chris Clarke (blue & black) v Marcus Evans

Game 1

• Clarke gets first break with blue but comes to grief at hoop 6.
• Evans takes yellow to 4-back.
• Clarke hits with blue, and goes to 4-back.
• Evans hits with red, sets up for a standard TP but fails hoop 3.
• Clarke gets going on a TP, delayed for some reason. (It seemed to me that both players were nervous in this first game.) He mis-approaches 3-back, finds a 20-yard roquet to hit, and then tries to roll off 3-back from the North boundary. He then fails a nigh impossible hoop.
• Evans gets going with red. A hairy break leads to an attempted STP, finishing with a failed ten-yard peg-out. He pegs out one ball.
• Clarke hits 13-yarder, has leave.
• Marcus hits centre-peg from 20 yards.

Evans +8.

Game 2

Clarke +26tp (5th turn; standard)

Game 3

Clarke +26tp (6th turn; standard)

Game 4

• Marcus hits duffer 4th turn and goes to 4-back
• Clarke hits lift, completes TPO
• Marcus picks up break, but some errant pioneers meant that the break was not what I'd call controlled. However he found himself 4 or 5 feet in front of 4-back with the game at his mercy. He stuck in the middle of it.
• Clarke hits ball in hoop from the N boundary, and finishes.

Clarke beat Evans -8 +26tp +26tp +4tpo

Brief impressions: Clarke is on top form, playing very well indeed. Only a couple of errors in the final, not many more in the rest of the event, and shooting well too.

Evans clearly had a brilliant tournament. He negotiated a tough route to the final with triples in every won game, and came back from 2 down to beat an on-form Robin Brown.

For me though the second best player at the event was Keith Aiton. Elegant, precise, motivated. Does lose one mark for his mobile going off in the Du Pre final. Just as well it was during his own turn.

Jenny Williams demonstrated that she is a reliable tripler. But didn't we know that already?

And James Death was clearly the most crowd-pleasing player.

Results