Six years ago when Alan McManus finally ended Fergal O'Brien's highly popular surprise run in his first Benson and Hedges Irish Masters the young Dubliner didn't have too much difficulty afterwards putting on a brave face. Then just 22 and still quite a way off the sort of world ranking that would earn him automatic entry into one of the most lucrative events on the tour, O'Brien had claimed a couple of scalps on the way to the semi-finals, taken home his biggest ever cheque and marked himself out as one for the future.
Since then his progress on the circuit has been steady, he's now up to 10 on the provisional world ranking list, and his form this season has been slightly better than that of McManus, the Scot who he has still to beat for the first time.
Given that McManus hadn't won a match at Goffs in four attempts since that semi-final six years ago their first-round meeting yesterday looked like a fine opportunity to break the duck. But, just as he did back in 1994, O'Brien lost 6-4 and it was obvious from his expression afterwards that he no longer saw it as quite such an honourable exit.
"I'm devastated," admitted an emotional O'Brien, who had fought his way back aggressively from 5-2 down before eventually being edged out in the 10th frame of their three and a half hour match.
"Losing 6-4 doesn't make it any better than losing 6-2. He's playing Thursday and I'm not, that's the important thing and it doesn't help that when I was trying to get back to 5-5, I had a couple of chances."
The 10th frame, in fact, had been the first of the match in which both players had appeared reluctant to take advantage of the break-building opportunities to come their way. McManus produced the best of the afternoon, a 122 amassed for the most part while the black was tied up, in frame three but after a promising opener the Irishman reacted positively to finding himself on the brink of defeat, stringing together a fine 73 and then 84 to win the eighth and ninth frames. Having earned the opportunity to draw level, O'Brien then surrendered his momentum. Trailing by eight points early in the frame, the 28-year-old looked to have let his opponent in for a match-winning visit to the table with some poor safety shots.
Instead the Glaswegian managed only 13 points before running out of position and beating a retreat. O'Brien then picked up a solitary loose red with a fine long pot before the pair embarked on an exchange of blunders - most involving the white paying unscheduled visits to one of the central pockets.
In the end it was McManus who managed to emerge on top, picking up the final four reds with colours to pull 34 points ahead. The local man briefly sought the couple of snookers required but never looked like getting them and after falling a further 10 points behind he conceded the match and Thursday's quarter-final meeting with defending champion Stephen Hendry.
"It's nice not to be going home the day after you arrive," said McManus who said when reminded of his record here that "I knew I'd been in a final or two and that I hadn't won a match in a few years but I wasn't quite certain of the details."
Later, in the evening session, John Parrott comfortably outplayed his old rival Steve Davis in a disappointing clash. Davis, the long-time world number one who won this title eight times between 1982 and 1994, started well enough, winning the first frame 78-20 thanks largely to breaks of 35 and 31.
It marked the highpoint of his night, however, for while Parrott never came close to producing his own best form Davis's cautious play was riddled with errors. Never before the victim of a first-round defeat here in Kildare, Davis's fate was more or less sealed by the interval.
After the break, at 4-1 down, he briefly attempted to halt the slide but was edged out of a tight frame after failing to pick up the snookers he needed by the time the reds were gone. And the man he beat in the 1991 final here took just under 15 minutes to wrap up his place in tomorrow's quarter-finals where he will meet world number three Mark Williams.
