These days you have to be a very handy player to make an impact on the under 12s. In a 12s tournament of skill and excitment Mark O'Flynn was a worthy winner but the others in the big four never give him an easy ride. He had to fight and battle in both the semi-final and the final.
Unfortunately drawn together in the Semis Mark and Gavin served up a fine game of Table tennis with Gavin never giving an inch to his clubmate in a thrilling five setter.The final lit up a Munster Open once again blessed with wonderful games.Daniel Keenan was the challenger and for the first two sets he looked a little overwhelmed by the situation. It was third final out of three for Mark and he began in a storming fashion with two quickfire sets 11-3 and 11-7 to take a two-nil lead. At 8-4 up in the third it look over to be honest but to Dan's credit he fought back to take that set 12-10. Amazingly the next set was acarbon copy with Mark letting an 8-4 lead slip and Daniel winning 12-10 The fifth set was a more nervy affair but at 7-3 up Mark looked incommand but after what had happened in the previous sets one could not be sure. Mark blinked slightly to let Daniel back to 7-5 but stepped it up to win 11-5. It was a breathtaking and exciting final with as much in the way of good points as any of the finals. Gavin finished 3rd beating David Budden 3-0 and special mention to Neal who finished 6th
Nothing could match last year's Juniors for exciting matches but this was still a high quality tournament with many exciting moments. It was disappointing for Andy Boland who lost in the last 32 to Brian Farrell and who really never got going.