The Maltese snooker team ended their commitments during this year’s edition of the International Challenge Cup held in Dunkerque in France after playing the last two games in the third and final day of this competition. Malta won both matches, against Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Although Malta won three out of four games it still finished in the third place.
The format of this international tournament is that the declared winner of the competition, after all the games are over, will be the country who wins the highest number of frames. In the morning the Maltese team won against Northern Ireland with a score of 15-12. This was the third year that Malta participated in the I.C.C. and in the two previous occassions the only two losses suffered were precisely against Northern Ireland.
In this edition the best results were obtained in the Masters category and the Juniors. In fact the young Maltese Xavier Rizzo, who was also the Maltese representative in this category last year, had an excellent 3-0 victory against Shea McConville to record his first ever victory during this international competition.
In the Masters division the Maltese players had different fortunes after all four matches in this category ended with a score of 3-0. Arthur Cachia and Philip Ciantar won against Dermot Loughran and Rory Mallon respectively but Frans Mintoff and Tony Mifsud sustained defeats to Paul Sweeney and Anto Heaney. The latter who won against Mifsud served as a replacement for Peter Reilly who at the very last moment could not join his contingent in Dunkerque.
Philip Ciantar in the third frame against Rory Mallon made a break of 104 which was declared as the best break of the tournament. Ciantar was also the only Maltese player to win all his games played during this edition.
In the Men’s category the only win for Malta was acheived by Chris Peplow who won versus Anto Heaney, 3-0. Joseph Casha, Isaac Borg and John Farrugia all lost with the same scoreline of 2-1 against Patrick Wallace, Ramie McAllister and Stephen Brady respectively.
Later in the afternoon Malta won also against the Republic of Ireland with a 16-11 victory. Once again the best results were achieved in the Masters and Juniors categories. The four Maltese players in this category won; Arthur Cachia against James Bateman and Frans Mintoff against Stephen Merrigan with a score of 3-0 while Tony Mifsud against Brendan Cooney and Philip Ciantar against Brendan Thomas finished 2-1. In the Juniors Xavier Rizzo concluded with another win, on this occassion, 2-1 against Joe Shannon.
In the Mens’ category the only Maltese player to win was Isaac Borg, he defeated Daniel Merrigan, 2-1. Chris Peplow and Joseph Casha lost against Robbie Murphy and Ross Bulman with a 2-1 result while John Farrugia lost all three frames against Alex Currid.
With these results, after the three days of competition, Malta won a total of 56 frames, four frames less than the winners of this year’s edition, Scotland and only two fewer than the hosting country, France which were the only country to win Malta. The Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland both finished in fourth place after both winning 48 frames.
In the closing ceremony it was announced that next year’s edition will be organized in Youghal, Cork in Ireland. Three editions of the I.C.C. have already been held in this venue, those in 2013, 2015 and 2019.
