THE Hollins Grove Small Table Snooker Championship continued apace with three more intriguing matches last week.

It turned out to be a thrilling evening as the players turned on the style in the knockout affair.

Match one pitted the youngster Conor Walsh against Hollins stalwart Gary Kilcoyne and it turned out to be a bizarre match, in more ways than one.

Walsh took the opener with ease but frame two was a closer affair.

With the players locked together Walsh ran in a break of 31 and the crowd sat mystified as Kilcoyne pulled the reds from the pocket and conceded the frame despite there being more than enough points to win.

That mistake put him two frames down and the error in arithmetic would come back to haunt him as the match reached its tense conclusion.

Kilcoyne took the next two frames in good style to level the match.

But it was the younger man who held his nerve, dominating the final frame to book his place in the last 16, and leave Kilcoyne wondering about what could have been had he done his sums in the second.

The next match looked a cracker as tournament organiser George Holden took on Gary Hillman.

But what looks good on paper doesn’t always turn out to be and it ended up a bit of an anti-climax as Holden dominated the match, taking full advantage of some glaring misses from his opponent.

Those mistakes from Hillman gave Holden the confidence to turn on the style, showing off some of his ability as he ran out an easy 3-0 winner and moved into the next round of his own tournament.

The final game of the night saw the long-awaited return to small tables action of Dave Harrison, who has been a keen participant in the Blackburn with Darwen League for many years until his recent break from the game.

He couldn’t have picked a tougher opponent for his return than the well respected Craig Steele and it promised to be an interesting affair.

The two have been good friends and the mutual respect showed as the match got off to a somewhat cagey start, with both players showing a few nerves on the baize.

Steele settled into the match quickly and looked to be taking the opener until a missed blue let Harrison in to clear and take a 1-0 lead.

Frame two was an even tighter affair as safety play came to the fore, with neither player willing to take on anything risky and these tactics suited Steele the better and he duly levelled the match.

Frame three was more of the same, the two players trading pots right down to the colours. A missed safety from Steele let Harrison in on the colours but after knocking in yellow and green he snookered himself on the brown and looked to be in trouble.

With a deficit of only 20 with 22 on Steele thought he was in with a chance of the steal to put himself in pole position to progress.

But he watched on horrified as Harrison played off the baulk cushion to hit brown and knock it straight in the top bag and land perfect on the blue.

The outrageous fluke seemed to knock the stuffing out off Steele and he was barely at the races in frame four as a tidy clearance from brown gave Harrison frame and match.