Martin McCrudden retained his Irish Championship title in Carlow yesterday after seeing off two time champion Vincent Muldoon 8-6 to lift his third title. The Kildare based player has had a very tough year after been involved in a serious car accident back in December which sidelined him for several months but he was certainly back to his best last weekend.
The championships was down to the quarter finals this weekend and Martin had to see off two very good players in order to reach the final. New Irish No.1 Rodney Goggins was his first opponent on Saturday and Martin had to battle back from 3-0 down to rattle off five frames in a row to claim a very impressive win over the Main Tour bound Goggins.
He then had to face regular Irish International and three time finalist John Torpey in the semi's who where he ran out a very impressive 6-1 winner. In the other half Muldoon also had to come back from 3-0 down to see off Dublin's John Sutton before recording a great 6-1 win over ex-pro Colm Gilcreest in the semi finals.
The final saw McCrudden take an early lead at 2-0 , 3-1, 4-2 until Muldoon strung three impressive frames together to take the lead at 5-4. The next two frames where shared to make it 6-5 to Muldoon but then the game turned with McCrudden knocking in a superb 93 and followed that up with a 53 break in the next to leave him only one frame from the title. The last frame was a tense one but McCrudden held his nerve and eventually ran out a 56-29 winner to take the Irish Championship for the third time.
He then announced he would be taking a break from the game next year and thanked everyone that had helped him through a tough year and especially PJ Nolan for his help down through the years on and off the table.
Vincent Muldoon 6-8 Martin McCrudden
12-65 ; 0 - 90 (89) ; 81 - 43 : 70 - 79 : 68 (61) - 40 : 0 - 69 : 79 - 16 : 78 - 5 : 116 (85) - 1 38 - 67 : 59 - 47 : 0 - 93 (93) : 4 - 65 (53) : 29 - 56
