Ballaghaderreen pool star has his eyes on the prize

To be ranked number one in the country at any sport you compete in is an incredible achievement and when it comes to pool, there is no one better right now than Declan Hough.

The Ballaghaderreen man has had a great year in the Irish Pool Association national tour. Across six ranking events in the 2023/2024 season, the 42-year-old won the Irish Pool Challenge Open in March and enjoyed consistent finishes across the others.

Those events also go towards to the final standings that make up the Irish teams that travel to play in the World and European Championships and given that these events get hundreds of players competing, to finish top of the pile is something special, especially for Declan after he didn’t play for two years when Covid hit.

“I thought my best years were behind me,” Declan told the Western People this week. “When Covid hit, I was living down in Shannon beside where I work but we moved up West then and I'd nowhere to practice.” To get his game sharp, Declan used to travel to pool clubs in Ballina, Castlebar and Westport but with a young family and work commitments, it was not sustainable. A decision to set up his own practice room in his house has paid major dividends.

“It's only in the last four months that I built a pool room at the back of the house and have my own table to practice on now, so that has just brought my game back leaps and bounds to where it was. I think it’d been about three years since I won a ranking event.

“I suppose you always have that element of doubt, thinking was that my last one or will I win another one? So it was hugely satisfying now to actually go and win another one. All the hard work was worth the effort.

“The clubs, everything was closed. It had a catastrophic effect on my game to be honest. Some players that are more naturally talented, they can go spells without playing whereas I feel like to keep my level at where I want to be at, I need to be playing and practicing all the time. So after two years of pretty much no pool at all in me, I felt like my game had just fallen off a cliff.” Declan began playing pool locally in Ballaghaderreen, where his love for holding a cue and potting balls began to blossom. But it wasn’t until a move to Sligo in 2001, where he was attending college, that he began to take things more seriously.

“It was only then when I kind of moved away from the local scene in Ballaghaderreen that I realised there was actually a national tour that you can play on.

“I moved all the furniture out of the apartment I was living in and got a pool table in. I just started putting the hours in and then the results started improving. It went from there then in terms of the national scene. I made the county team shortly after that and then a year or two after that, met the Irish team and I’ve been kind of on both teams ever since.” Declan first made the Mayo team in 2001 and has been an ever present since then. He feels his breakthrough moment on the national tour came in 2005 when he won his first ranking title.

“Hard to think now, it's nearly 20 years ago between my first one and most recent one. It always takes getting over the line to actually come home with the title, to fully believe that you can win titles.

“I suppose the belief grew from there then that I could consistently compete at the latter end of tournaments and win the odd one here and there because they're hard to win, they're so competitive. If you can pick up one every year or two, it constitutes a good season as long as you're kind of consistently doing well in the other events as well and you're keeping your ranking high.” In these rankings event, the early rounds are a race to six frames, with the final a first to nine. Given the depth of talent, shocks are aplenty and players can find themselves an innocent bystander as their opponent pots ball after ball and rattles off frames without them doing anything particularly wrong. The mental side of the game is just as important as the ability of the player with a pool cue in his hands.

“I've lost matches before where I've pretty much just been a spectator where you're breaking, you're not getting the ball off the break and you're just sitting down watching your opponent clear and then he comes, breaks well and gets the ball and then he clears.

“You can lose matches at times and do nothing wrong. That's where the luck element comes into it, where you need to be getting the ball on the break so you're the one that's clearing up and not having to go back and sit in your seat watching your opponent do it.

“You need that bit of luck to go your way at times as well at the key moments.” On the mental toughness required, Declan said: “You see it in any cue sport. It can be demoralising sitting in your seat in two ways, when you're sitting there and knowing you've done nothing wrong and you're not getting to the table and secondly, when you're making mistakes and watching your opponent clear up.

“It's a lonely spot when you're struggling mentally but you have to be so resilient because we all make mistakes. It's how you bounce back from the mistake and you can’t let it cost you two or three frames because you're not ready to take your next chance because of the missed ball that you're still thinking about.

“At the level we play at, we can all pop balls till the cows come home and finish games all day long, but it really is kind of what's between the two ears that separates the winners from the also rans. It really is a mental battle most of the time.” Closer to home, pool in Mayo has enjoyed an explosion in popularity in recent years. Like the national tour, Mayo has its own ranking system to represent the county at the All-Ireland championships, which take place in Killarney from May 22-26.

“Pool is absolutely booming in Mayo at the moment, we’ve record numbers. We have a ranking system for the county team, the same kind of format for qualifying for Irish teams.

“We have four events in the year in different towns. We're getting around 100 people now for events, which I think is the best number of any county association in Ireland.” Declan feels a lot of the increase in numbers playing is down to rule changes from two years ago which encourages more attacking, positive play.

“There was old rules there where you could kind of cover pockets and have little touch-up snookers, but that's kind of all gone now.

“There's still a tactical side to the new rules we play, but in general it's going for the game, it's not negative. It's good to watch and that's kind of why there's been a lot more exposure now in terms of TV and stuff like that. It's more enjoyable to the non-pool player if they're tuning in to watch it. They don’t want to be watching two lads taking an hour to finish a game of pool and ten balls sitting over the pocket. They just want to go in and watch good, creative attacking play and that really does lend itself to the rules that we play now at the moment.” Declan is very optimistic about Mayo’s chances at the upcoming All-Irelands. Since he has been involved, Mayo have lost four finals but believes they have a great chance to end their hoodoo.

There is also a singles competition for all the players. Declan has been beaten in two singles finals, losing one of them in a decider 10-9, but the belief is still there he can win it.

“I think our team now that's going down to Killarney next month, on paper in my opinion is the strongest team we've ever assembled to go and try and win the All-Ireland.

“We have yet to get over the line. I think we have a great chance this year. We're like the footballers. We get to lots of finals but we can't win them. But we have a great chance this year now in my opinion.

“There's ten of us there going down and we're all pretty much as good as each other. We're not carrying anybody. There's no weak link, so we've a great chance.

“Between (singles) and the team event, I still think I could nab one of them yet. It's obviously very hard but the belief is still there.” Should Mayo get over the line in Killarney, Declan has two more boxes to check off his list: a world title playing for Ireland and to compete on the lucrative Ultimate Pool Tour in the UK. In his near 15-year spell playing for his country, Ireland have reached four world finals but like Mayo, that final step has proved to be the stumbling block.

With his own setup at home now, Declan has no plans to put the cue away anytime soon. He would love to have a crack at the Ultimate Pool Tour next year and he hopes to get a sponsor to help with additional costs.

“There's good opportunity then over there if you do well to get bigger prize money than what's on offer in Ireland. It's just kind of been able to pay all the costs upfront to be able to give yourself a chance. To go over and do it is the thing.” For anyone who may be interested in sponsoring Declan, you can contact him on 086-8701211.