JONNY Hannan is this year’s Blackburn & Darwen Snooker champion – but only after surviving an almighty scare in the semi-finals.

Defending champion Hannan retained his title with a 5-2 success over Graeme Hargreaves in the final but almost came unstuck in his last four clash with Darwen’s Alf Bellusci.

The pair have crossed paths on numerous occasions with the youngster seemingly having the better of the Darwen veteran.

This time though it was Bellusci who set off like a train taking a 2-0 lead in double quick time with breaks of 45 and 52.

Hannan was in trouble in frame three, trailing by 43 points but held his nerve in fine style to pinch the frame on the black courtesy of a 46 break.

Frame four was more of the same with Bellusci taking an early lead only for Hannan to pinch another on the black to level the match.

Hannan kept up the pressure in the fifth and seemed to have Bellusci wobbling as he missed another black to put Hannan in the lead for the first time.

Bellusci showed he is made of sterner stuff in frame six, pinching it on the pink after a quality 52 break from Hannan.

At 3-3 Bellusci must have been wondering how he hadn’t won the match 4-1 instead of having to face a nerve wrecking decider.

As you would expect it was a tense affair with both players having plenty of chances but it was the reigning champion who held himself together to forge a wonderful clearance from brown to put himself in the final for the second year running.

His opponent was decided the following night when good friends Andy Lancaster and Graeme Hargreaves contested the second semi.

It was all smiles and jokes before the start but it was Hargreaves who got his game face on first and stormed to an easy win in the opening frame.

Lancaster seemed shocked at the quality of his opponents play but he responded in kind, taking the second frame comfortably to level it.

It was more of the same in frame three as Lancaster stamped his authority on proceedings to take a 2-1 lead, taking full advantage of some Hargreaves misses.

After the interval it looked for all the world as if Hargreaves would level it but he missed an easy pink that let Lancaster steal the frame and open up a seemingly decisive 3-1 lead.

Hargreaves left the arena for a few moments and whatever he said to himself certainly did the trick.

He returned with a more positive, confident air about him and quickly got down to business to pull one back.

At 3-2 things started to go Hargreaves’ way and Lancaster could only watch as his lead quickly disappeared.

The decider saw the combatants trade blows like heavyweight boxers until the first solid chance fell to Lancaster.

What was looking like a frame winning-break turned into nothing as a poor positional shot from black to red left him nowhere.

Hargreaves seized on the error and soon the players were neck and neck on the colours. Lancaster potted a fabulous yellow but somehow managed to snooker himself on the green.

The dreaded miss rule came into play and by the time Lancaster negotiated his way out of trouble Hargreaves only needed the green to take frame and match and complete a sensational comeback.

Thursday night’s final was a game of two halves as a lacklustre Hannan struggled to find his peak form.

Despite that a couple of 30 plus breaks was enough to give the champ the opener before Hargreaves took advantage of some weak safety to level it.

Hargreaves was in control of frame three in what was almost an exact reversal of frame the opener with 30 plus runs being enough to give him a 2-1 lead.

Frame four was more a case of Hargreaves losing it rather than Hannan winning it and both players were relieved when the interval arrived and the score board read 2-2.

When the match resumed after the break it was as though a light had gone on in Hannan’s brain – he knew exactly what he needed to do and he did it in style.

It was one way traffic as the champion put on a snooker masterclass to leave Hargreaves wondering what had hit him.

The 2-2 scoreline vanished into the distance as Hannan took the remaining frames to retain his title 5-2.

Hargreaves will take comfort from the fact that in this, his first competitive snooker in some time, he battled his way to the final.

For Hannan it maintains his grip on the big tables titles in the area but still leaves him missing that elusive title on the smaller tables.

He will hope to put that right when the Blackburn with Darwen Snooker League gets under way in a few weeks time.