The sad death of Dan McLaughlin, Life President of the CYMS club in Letterkenny cast a long shadow over the snooker scene in County Donegal last week. Although he had been seriously ill for some time, Dan still maintained his interest in everything that was billiards or snooker-related. His death will be felt most of all in the CYMS club and the Donegal Town Snooker Club join with them in mourning Dan's passing. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

As a mark of respect to Dan, the Junior Knockout matches last weekend were postponed till this Saturday coming. North West C will face Twin Towns D in Letterkenny, Donegal B meet Convoy B in Donegal and Twin Towns C meet their A side. The previous round's unfortunate highlight was the victory of Convoy B over a fancied Donegal A side. The team of Niall Gillespie, Conor Browne, Phelim Brady and Ciaran O'Reilly just didn't perform on the day. Donegal B fared better, defeating Convoy B in a play-off with Mark Mulhern the hero. His victorious teammates were Paul Sweeney, Keith Mulhern and Fergal Browne.

The club wishes Oliver and Sharon Plunkett well for the future and team manager Kieran Temple hopes that Oliver will still be available for the occasional match!

The behaviour of certain juniors has left a lot to be desired in recent weeks and several have been suspended from the club. The Snooker Club has always been an outlet for the youth of Donegal Town and the Committee intends that it should remain that way. The club will not tolerate bad behaviour and only those who obey its rules will be allowed to avail of its facilities.

The current junior competition has been tortuous in the extreme with many matches not being played, resulting in a plethora of byes and tosses of coins. The future of junior competitions is being jeopardised by the junior members who enter competitions but fail to play. Their names have been noted. It is not fair on those who are serious about their snooker or on the various sponsors who generously donate prizes to the club. A pool competition fixed for May and June is now in serious doubt.