All Ireland Inter County 8-Aside 9-Ball Team Championships:

 Co. Down Are Crowned 2006

All Ireland Inter County Team Champions

Co Down was crowned the 2006 All Ireland Inter County 8-Aside 9-Ball Team Champions at the weekend past after the grand-finals this popular team event also took place in Mahon’s Hotel Co. Fermanagh alongside the sports festival which included pool, poker and darts for the first time in the four year history of the event.

Co. Down

Co. Tyrone (A)

The Down county came through a very tough group of teams finishing in runner-up spot in the group to reach the semi-final stages where they would come up against Co. Derry the current champions for the last years, reputation didn’t stop these top Co. Down players believe when they ran out 11-10 winners after Derry made a fight back coming from 9-4 down to move into the 2006 final.

In the final the Co. Down players once again played superb pool beating Co. Antrim in a quality final who was classed as the tournament favourites after the Antrim lads toped there group with three wins out of three which included the defeat of Down but this time round it was the Down county who played superb pool in the final to run out the 2006 All Ireland Inter County 8-Aside 9-Ball Team Champions making it a double result for the county after they won the All Ireland 4-Aside Team Championships earlier this year.

Co. Donegal

The organisers of this popular event would like to congratulate the new champions in the manner they won this prestigious event when they where the only team throughout tournament to field a lady player who was Fiona Devine. Fiona stepped into the Down side for the late replacement for Ireland’s number two ranked player Paddy Mc Laughlin who was not to play under the following (Rule):….. Any player can play for any 8-aside inter county team in Ireland but once they do they can’t play for any other team in the same competition over the years. Paddy had played for the Co. Armagh 8-aside county team in 2003 so there for he can’t play for any other county in the 8-aside event other that Co. Armagh.

Fiona played well throughout the tournament defeating a few top players along the way including Martin Whorisky (Derry) and the Meath captain Paul Tierney and just missing the 9-ball to defeat the tours number one seed Paul Bonner (Donegal)…Well done Fiona keep it up and hopefully we will have a ladies tour and ladies inter county team event up and running shortly.