Arriving into a sunny Jersey on Valentine’s Day there was no tall dark handsome stranger waiting for me with a dozen red roses but there was a very friendly taxi driver who gave me a history lesson of the island during the 15 minute journey to the Ommarroo Hotel -  and very interesting it was too!  I have only been to the Ommarroo once before but it really does feel like you’r “at home” – the staff are friendly and helpful, the food is second to none for value and best part of all - no worrying about setting up the (Simply Pool) tables etc., because Mr. Miller and his merry bunch of men, headed by Paul Bebb,had it all in hand - so it was straight off to the bar for me J

The Tour started at 8pm. on the Thursday evening with everyone arriving in various groups throughout the day; as was the case in Derby many players brought friends, wives, girlfriends etc and everyone again seemed to have a good time and no doubt appreciated the 12noon starts on Friday and Saturday morning!!  Due to the time available we were able to run various flyers over the course of the weekend as well as the £50-a-man event which, on this occasion, was won by Christophe Lambert who, having whitewashed Lee Pickard in the semi final continued his form to beat Rob Southey 6-2 in the final.

We knew that there were to be few absentees from this event due to a wedding amongst other things and in the end the 26 runners included two new entrants in Scotland’s Chris Brown and Wales’ Jonathan Bushnell. There were first round byes for Jack Whelan, Julius Wilson-Wolfe, James Attridge, Scott Gillespie and Andrew Thornton and first round scorelines of 6-1 in their favour for Scott Higgins, Mark Tomlinson and Stuart Weeks. Andrew Bingham disposed of Drew Wheeldon 6-0 with closer victories by 6 frames to 5 for Oly Bale over Will Adamson and 2005 French Grand National semi-finalist Alan Dale over Dave Margett. In the second round Chris Brown made his mark with a 6-3 victory over No. 1 seed Jack Whelan whilst mates Alan Dale and Kevin Ryder lost to two of the Derby contingent, Scott Higgins and Julius Wilson-Wolfe by 6-3 and 6-4 respectively. Pro-Am finalist from Event 1 Stuart Weeks put paid to James Attridge and Oly Bale hit some form in beating Scott Gillespie by 6 frames to 2 with Andrew Bingham bidding “au revoir” to site user Typiaf. Amanda Watson lost to Mark Tomlinson by 6 frames to 3 and Mick Suthers came out on top in the deciding frame of a marathon match with Andrew Thornton. Scott Higgins continued his form in the quarter finals with a 6-2 defeat of Chris Brown and Stuart Weeks saw off Oly Bale by  6 frames to 4.  The Preston boys, Suthers and Tomlinson marched on into the semi-finals at the expense of Bingham and Wilson-Wolfe. At this stage old man Croasdale was telling us all about his dream of an “all Preston final” but it wasn’t to be as the eventual finalists proved to be too strong for the likely lads. This was Scott Higgins’ second tour event and he seems to have taken to the rules like a duck to water - other than a couple of missed balls early on in his match against Scotland’s Stuart Weeks he was very confident in winning the final and the £400 first prize by 7 frames to 3.

51 runners meant that there were byes for Andy Croasdale, John Chambers, Jimmy Carney, Andy Lucas, James Attridge, John Giles, Paddy Moir, Simon Ward, Phil Hoskins, Scott Ross, Steve Martin, Jayson Shaw and the in-form Ben Davies.  Sean Daly looked to have re-found the killer instinct in putting out Event 1 Finalist Stuart Weeks 7-5 whilst there were final frame wins for Rob Chambers over Will Adamson and Scott Gillespie over Lee Pickard. Also progressing through to the last 32 were Oly Bale (7-1 McMahon), Pat O’Kane (7-1 Williams), Andrew Bingham (7-0 Marzec), Dave Birchall (7-3 Holgate), Chris Brown (7-0 Ryder), Aidan Finch (7-2 Watson), Ieuan Roberts (7-2 Thornton), Mark Tomlinson (7-2 Gueneuc), Ross McInnes (7-3 Suthers), Julius Wilson-Wolfe (7-3 O’Donnell), Jonathan Bushnell (7-4 Margett), Scott Higgins (7-5 Reynolds), Drew Wheeldon (7-5 Whelan), Brian Evans (7-1 Jones) and Terry Elliott (7-5 Parker).

The Chambers brothers found themselves draw against each other in the last 16 with John having the better of his big brother by 7 frames to 5. Derby boys John Giles and Scott Higgins went out to Paddy Moir and Steve Martin whilst Phil Hoskins looked to be playing well in seeing of Scott Ross by 7 frames to 4.  There was a similar scoreline for Wardy over Ross McInnes and also Ben Davies over Brian Evans. Andy Lucas put paid to Chris Brown by 7 frames to 3 with the surprise of the round being Andy Croasdale losing to Oly Bale, also by a score of 7-3.

Onto the final and Ben didn’t really allow John to get into his stride and proceeded to win his first title of the weekend by 8 frames to 3.  

The 24 players in attendance included French No. 1 Christophe Lambert who always begins his PPPO Season in Jersey and he made no mistakes in despatching of Jayson Shaw by 8 frames to 4 in the first round. Paddy Moir got through a final frame decider with Rob Chambers whilst the latter’s brother John saw off John O’Donnell by a larger margin of 8 frames to 1. Simon Ward set himself up for a second round match with Andy Croasdale in defeating Sean Daly 8-2 but fellow Welshman Ieuan Roberts was again unlucky in losing to Aidan Finch 8-6. The top half of the draw saw Paddy Moir and Tony Holgate both lose by 8 frames to 6 to Andy Lucas and Alan Reynolds respectively with Scott Ross and John Chambers seeing off the challenges of Phil Hoskins and Ross McInnes with scorelines of 8-5.  Once again all the welsh were in the bottom half  and whilst Ben Davies rattled past Aidan Finch 8-3 , both Steve Martin and Simon Ward fell to Jimmy Carney and Andy Croasdale respectively. Ben then went on to end Christophe’s run in the quarter finals and although John Chambers raced to a 7-1 lead against Scott Ross, it was “The Bossman” who clawed his way back and crossed the line for a place in the semi’s against fellow Scottish international Alan “Renzie” Reynolds who had disposed of Andy Lucas by 8 frames to 4.  Event 1 Winner Andy Croasdale was then at the wrong end of a 9-2 drubbing by Ben “Ding” Davies in one semi with elder statesman Renzie having a harder fought tussle in the other eventually booking his place in the final with a 9-6 win over The Bossman.

After his Pro-Am win it was no doubt that Davies was the favourite to win this event too – he was absolutely flying and could do no wrong and, although he put a fair few frames between himself and Alan a lazy shot on the black at 9-5 could easily have turned the game on it’s head when Renzie proceeded to pull off a magnificent skill-shot to take the frame. However Ben made no mistakes in the next frame and pocketed his second £1000 of the weekend to take the Seabird Hotels Professional title and put himself top of the tree and Provisional No. 1 for the next event. Ding! Ding!

Once again congratulations to all Winners and thanks to everyone who travelled to Jersey to enjoy the hospitality of the Ommarroo Hotel – hopefully we will all return to enjoy some more next year!