North
Down Open 2006 Sixteen players travelled to the Borough Gym, Bangor - three from the South of Ireland, the rest from the North. The Open Final was contested by the top two seeds, Northern Ireland's Kenny Beggs & Southerner, Gary Moore. Although often seeded 1& 2, it was their first meeting in a final and it went right to the wire. After squandering four good 1st-half chances, Kenny took the lead just after the break but Gary equalised with two minutes remaining to force extra-time. There was no further score so a shoot-out was required. The pair could still not be separated after 5 shots each, having netted 2 apiece. They both missed their first sudden-death shot, Gary then missed again but Kenny scored to win the shoot-out 3-2. North Down's Paul Rodgers had a good tournament, reaching the semi-final after edging out Joe McRoberts from Group B on goal-difference and defeating Eoin Adams in the quarter-final.
Beggs also won the Veterans, beating Davy Clegg 1-0 in the semi-final & Nicky Moore 2-0 in the final, after Nicky had accounted for Alistair Morrison, 5-4 on shots, in his semi-final. Belfast's Andrew Morrison won the Under-19 event, which was played as round-robin group of five. He won all four of his matches to top the table, six points ahead of 2nd placed Daniel Kirkwood from Bangor. Stuart Mcilroy, home from England for the weekend, won the Plate, after being eliminated from the Open by Eoin Adams & John Moore in a tough group D. |