Joe Swail captured the Lucan racing Classic in Celbridge, Ireland on Sunday with an impressive 5-0 victory over the tournament promoter Fergal O'Brien. The event was conceived a few years ago to help the Irish players sharpen up before the new season and going by his performances over the weekend Joe has been putting in the hours over the summer break.
The eight man field gathered in the Co.Kildare club just outside Dublin on Friday morning and newcomer Brendan O'Donoghue caused the first major shock beating Michael Judge 5-4 to get his pro career off to a flying start. Brendan followed that win up in the next session by defeating Patrick Wallace 5-4 also with a top run of 116 to put him favourite for top spot in group B.
Swail opened up his group with a superb 5-2 win over Ken Doherty who had already played and beat Fergal O'Brien earlier that morning. Swail and Ken had shared the first four frames but two tons in a row blew Doherty away and Swail finished out the match 5-2 with ease. The other table in that session was all one way traffic as O'Brien defeated the 2007 Champion David Morris 5-0.
Saturday saw O'Donoghue run out an easy 5-0 winner against Joe Delaney although Delaney did salvage some pride by beating Wallace 5-4 to get a point on the board. The other match in the group saw Judge qualify in second place by beating Wallace 5-3.
In the other group both Swail and Doherty saw off the challenge of Morris but O'Brien's win over Swail meant that we had a three way tie and it was O'Brien and Swail who progressed ahead on Doherty on frame difference.
The semi's saw O'Brien knock in breaks of 113 and 132 in his 5-2 win over Judge and Swail progressed thanks to a solid 5-1 victory against O'Donoghue who showed that he is well up for the coming season after some valuable match practice all summer during the European Championships and the six red event in Thailand.
The final however was a one way affair as Swail blew O'Brien away 5-0 to capture the Lucan Racing Classic title for 2009. Next up for Swail is a match against either Graham Dott or Gerard Greene on Wednesday in the Pro Challenge Series in Leeds before the qualifiers for Shanghai which are now only a week away.
