The Q-Master stable of snooker professionals is made up of Stephen Hendrick, Darren Morgan,
Mike Hallett and John Parrott.
Based in Stirling in Scotland, the Q-Masters players are the new young stars of the world
game.
Chirpy Liverpudlian, John Parrott likes a laugh but is deadly serious about his snooker.
He's ranked number two in the world.
Stephen Hendry, the hottest property in snooker for years, is the world number three and widely
tipped as a future world champion.
Joining Q-Masters has given Mike Hallett a new lease of life in top class snooker.
He's now ranked sixth in the world.
Darren Morgan has just completed his first season as a professional.
His performances have warned his fellow pros that he is an opponent to be feared and a
sure fire snooker star of the future.
Okay the new frame of snooker, beginning of the frame and obviously the fair shot, the
break off shot is the most important.
What you're going to try and do here depending on the obviously score in the match is to
try and get your opponent in trouble.
There's two options really to play an attacking break or to play a defensive break.
What I mean by that is if you're three or four frames down in a match obviously and
your opponent is playing very very well you don't want to sort of try and break the balls
up.
What we're going to try and do is just try and keep them tight off the initial break
off so we can get in and develop the reds.
So the first one is called a defensive break.
We're going to play off the end red, three cushions, top, side, side again hopefully
landing somewhere around in this here behind the yellow.
Well it's a little bit narrow.
Obviously I've left him a red onto the corner pocket.
I'd like the white really to be somewhere in this area.
So I'm trying to put my opponent under pressure as soon as possible.
Now we've opened three or four reds there because initially if he does miss and mess
up the safety shot then I'm going to go straight in and hopefully make a good break.
Okay just going to break off here now.
I'm going to play the end red, end red of the pack, a little bit left hand side on the
white, bring it around the two, three cushions hopefully somewhere in bulk around the yellow
spot.
Try not to open the pack too much and we're going to try and put Stephen in trouble.
That's not too bad.
A little bit now, left Stephen with an attempt at a safety shot.
Okay we've seen the defensive break.
What we're going to try and play now is an attacking break.
You're three or four frames in a match, up in a match I should say and what we're going
to try and do is spread the balls more evenly over the table.
Try and open three or four more reds so put the opponent under pressure as quickly as
possible.
So what we're going to try and do is play the cue ball onto the second red this time
instead of the end red of the pack.
Three cushions again, hopefully bringing the white roughly around behind the yellow spot.
So it's left hand side on the cue ball, half ball and there you go a pot off the break.
That's obviously a fluke but it's in good position.
Really you can take either the brown into the centre pocket or just drop the white behind
the yellow ball putting your opponent in a lot of trouble.
As you can see the reds are now evenly spread and obviously if you get in amongst the reds
you can make a substantial break to continue the pressure on your opponent and win yet
another frame.
So I've just set up a little demonstration here where I've got to swerve around the red
to hit the object ball which is a green.
To do this I have to raise the butt of the cue, a lot of bottom of the white ball and
right hand side and swerve around the red to hit the green.
And for every shot in the game you need a good basic style and stance.
So the way I do it obviously everyone has different styles.
I put my right foot in first which points in the same direction as the shot is.
Then bring my left foot in slightly in front of my left leg.
My left leg is bent and the right leg is straight.
And for the bridge, the basic bridge is spread the four fingers and raise the knuckles and
bring your thumb up towards your fingers to form a groove to which the cue goes through
nice and smoothly.
And the cue goes straight through the middle of my chin and keep the whole body still,
the head still and pot the red.
Now for potting difficult shots like long shots, which me and John played a couple of
there, you just follow up the same routine by keeping the body straight and your head
completely still when playing the shot.
One of the most common things that I see when I go into clubs and snooker centres is the
amount of people who actually grip a cue badly.
And I think it's a very, very important point if you're starting off.
I think the main way to pick the cue up is nice and firm in the first finger and the
thumb and only slightly harder on the second finger and the last two should be very, very
light on the cue.
I know some players hold it in the back two fingers but I prefer to do it in the front
and it gives you freedom of movement with your fingers to go backwards and forwards.
I've seen a lot of people with the thumb on the top and holding it at the end of the fingers,
it's not really a good thing to do.
You want a nice firm on the first finger and the thumb and just gentle with the others.
Another thing that the club players ask me to do is show them how to screw the ball back.
The amount of people who've been playing for a long time and can't manage to do that is
quite unbelievable.
I think the best way to do this is, very simple shot, is to explain to them that the tip of
the cue must go through the cue ball a certain length, nice and long and smooth.
So you'd probably play the screw back like this.
Press the white at the bottom and you're practicing with a nice smooth cue action shot you're
going to play and then you push the tip through the cue ball and you get the screw back.
And hopefully you don't go in the pocket when you play.
This particular trick shot is called the pink pearl and the idea of this is that I can on
the first red out of the pack and the pink comes out of the middle of the six reds, crosses
the table and goes into the centre pocket.
And it should go something like this.
It worked.
The idea of this shot is once again to pop the pink and we hit the cue ball with the
red onto the front red.
The one past the pink moves out the way and the pink travels, hits the red over the middle
hole and should go in the middle.
We'll see.
Another one that worked.
The idea of this trick shot is to try and pop the pint glass in the centre pocket.
Just make sure you've got a nice solid glass when you do this.
It should go something like this.
Well John joined us, he was the last to join the team and I was very surprised because
really my first long chat with John was in Canada for the Canadian Open and during a
meal we were having I said to him, did he realise that he was one of the best four players
in the world at that particular time?
And he looked at me as if I had horns growing from my head and I don't think, in fact I
know that he didn't believe it.
And it was some months later when he actually won the European Open that he confessed that
he now believed in himself.
And he again is a very, very natural player, very talented player but if he had a fault
it was perhaps his total lack of commitment and not believing in himself.
I think he's got the belief in himself now.
I think he's just got to show a little bit more commitment and I think he will be up,
he could very well be up at number one.
Started playing snooker at the age of 12 or 13, my father introduced me to the game.
He'd always been like an avid league player and he said to me one night, it was raining,
you'd been going to go and have a game of bowls, he used to play that as well when I
was younger and he said to me, come on, we're going to have a game of snooker.
I said, oh yeah, that'll do me, we'll go and see if we're any good at it, you know.
And he taught me the basics, the stance and grip and all the rest of it and started me
off and I got the bug immediately.
I'm very pleased now, I mean it was a little bit, when I started in the professional game
it was slow the first couple of seasons to get going and it's gradually got better and
better and to the point now where I feel as if I'm just starting to realise my potential
in the game and I'm very, very happy and got everything to look forward to for the coming
seasons.
The main thing of my career so far has been winning of the European Open in Doverville,
which was a real tested character, not only did I play quite well there, I had a lot of
time in between matches to wait and things and I was really, really pleased to win that
one and it's always nice to get the first ranking tournament out of the way and at least
I know I'm a winner now and I can get on playing in the rest of the tournaments but that's
been the main thing above anything.
Apart from that though, the consistency is what I'm pleased with, I've been in a lot
of finals and lots of semi-finals and courses so I'm playing consistently well all the time
which is what it's all about.
It's no good really having won good tournaments and then four bad ones, you've got to do it,
play well all the time.
My ambition in the game is just to keep playing well and winning ranking tournaments, I mean
I could live without being world champion, I wouldn't end up pulling my hair out and
all that, it would be absolutely lovely to do but it's the main thing to keep playing
well and to win the ranking tournaments but above anything else, my priority is not just
to be happy, that's all I ask for.
John Parrott is known as the Mr Funny Man of the snooker circuit, why is that?
I think the main thing of coming from Liverpool is you've got to have a sense of humour,
everybody else seems to have one there and certainly it keeps me sane through the season
because it can be a little bit dogmatic going from one tournament to the other and hotel
rooms for this and that and I think you need a good sense of humour and certainly with
the rest of the lads in Queue Masters you have a great laugh and everyone takes the
mickey and ribs you and you know people tend to think that you lose your sense of humour
but it's just as you seem to be more successful but it's not the case, I mean you just get
more mickey taken and I really enjoy the humour, that's what keeps me sane.
John has recently got married, how has that affected his life as a snooker professional?
Getting married is very very stabilising, it's great to be able to go home to your
own house and know that your wife is always going to be there and you can just relax because
you're in the public eye enough and you really do value your privacy you know, so when you
go back home it's great to be like that, to be able to just go home to your wife and stuff.
There's two shots in the game of snooker which I find very difficult, one of the shots
is playing with a spider as you can see now and the other shot is playing doubles across
the table and using the angles of the cushions. The first shot I'm going to play is using
the spider, obviously we can't get to it just by reaching over because it's too far across
the table and the rest the queue would be too low and you need to get over this red,
so the spider enables you to get well above the red, aim down on the white but you mustn't
put any side on the white at all because it'll swerve the white and you'll miss the pot,
so you've got to keep very steady, strike the white in the middle, very slow and just
roll it into the pocket, a very difficult shot. The next shot is the double in which
a lot of most of the professionals play as a pot safety because you have no guarantee
of getting it because every cushion and table reacts differently. So this way I would use
that I would try and put the red into the opposite middle and stay for the black. It's
wet in this time but you can't guarantee potting it so you won't see many professionals playing
them in matches because it's such a risky shot. The next way to play off a cushion is
obviously if you're snookered. As you can see I'm snookered directly behind the pink
and the white is too close to the pink and full ball behind the pink to be able to swerve
round so I'm going to have to come off the cushion, playing ball to try and hit the red
and manage to hit it. Whereas if I'd missed it I would have let my opponent in to clear
the table and perhaps win the frame. I'm going to try and double this red into this middle
pocket. It's a pot safety really, shouldn't leave much if I miss it. I'm going to play
double the red across the table into this pocket. I first saw Stephen in the club that
I own in Stirling although I had seen him in junior pot black on television before that
and at that time I was involved in the amateur association, Scottish amateur association
that is and we through one of my companies we sponsored the Scottish amateur championship
which Stephen went on to win and shortly after that his parents approached me to manage him
and of course the rest of the story just goes on from there. I think he's got a number of
special attributes such things as temperament, total self belief, the dedication and the
application. He knows exactly what he wants to achieve which is the number one slot and
the world championship. These I think are the things that keep him going. The first
time I realised I could play Snickers when I got my first table for my Christmas it was
a small table off my mum and dad when I was 12 going on 13 and within two or three weeks
I was making 50 breaks in the table so I realised I could play the game. Then obviously I moved
up to a club, played in the full size tables. After a while I made a century break when
I was only 13 so then I decided to start entering tournaments so I went down to Pontons for
a Snickers festival and entered an under 16 tournament just to see really how good I was
compared with people my own age and I managed to win the tournament which surprised me.
So from then on, from knowing that I could win tournaments I just started playing more
and more. I think my rise has been fairly unusual because I'm so young. I mean I turned
professional when I was 16. A lot of people thought I was turning professional too young,
sort of lamb to the slaughter sort of thing but I'd gained all the experience that I could.
As an amateur I'd travelled up and down Britain for many many years playing in all the tournaments
I could so I thought it was time for a change. My ambition is to be world champion, be world
number one and I'm not really fussy which comes first. Both at the same time would be
nice but I think world number one sort of proves that you're consistent over the whole
year where this world championship is, although it's the biggest tournament, it's only one
tournament. Whereas if you're world number one it proves you've been consistently the
best over the whole season. No I'm not in a hurry, I mean I've got the chance to beat
Alex Higgins' record. He was the youngest person to win the world championship. He was
22 when he won the world championship so I've got two years left to beat that. The first
matches I played as a professional were strange because although I won my very first match
after that I tended to lose every match. I only got one ranking point from my first season
but I learned a lot because you always learn by getting beat and the situations were a
lot more different as an amateur. You go to a club and you don't know how good the table
is going to be and you can just turn up in trousers and a shirt whereas a professional
you're going there, you're playing in the best arenas in Britain, you're playing in
the best tables with referees, you have to wear a bow tie for every match so it's a completely
different set up. Jimmy White's been my hero all the way through my career is because he's
an attacking player and I think that's the way my game has always been as an attacking
player. My main strength is potting balls but through experience and through playing
the top players such as Cliff Thorburn, Taylor Davis who have got some of the best safety
games in snooker, it has improved my safety game as well so I've got more of an all round
game now. I think there's players that are more natural than others. I think myself,
Jimmy White and Alex Higgins are three or there's maybe a couple more that have never
been coached in their lives. I mean I learned snooker by just watching television, watching
the other players and learning from them whereas a lot of other players have been coached in
their game and still do get coached so you can be made as a player but whatever way if
you're natural or not natural it takes a lot of practice. There's plenty of times, certainly
when I go into the snooker centres and watch around, I see people come up with safety shots
which are very, very basic and unfortunately at our level they don't seem to be quite good
enough and in this basically a lot of the stuff that's played is what they call a figure
of eight safety and the idea of this is that when I've played contact with the red the
white should come off one cushion, two cushion, this one back here in a figure like an eight.
So I'll try and attempt to play what we call an attacking safety shot and put the white
in bow and hopefully in a good position and that would be trouble. Completely out of position
here so I'm going to have to play a safety shot. Play this red in the cushion with a
bit of right hand side to go up to the ball carrier. I'm going to try and put the yellow
behind the blue and pink and the white somewhere behind the black, hopefully get a snooker.
Off the ball and the yellow. Well Stephen has left me a pot on but it's a bit risky,
probably going to wait for a better opportunity. I'm just going to knock the yellow up and
down the table again, hopefully leaving it round about this area and try and put the
white behind the black. Well Mike, I came across Mike first in 1986 when we teamed up
Mike and Stephen for the World Doubles and during that tournament they made the final,
they lost to Davis and Mayo but during that particular championship it was very clear
that Mike had a very great talent and it surprised me to find that he'd been a pro for some
seven or eight years, sticking somewhere between 21 and 32 and I made up my mind that really
it was a question that if somebody could direct him, if somebody could get the application
and the dedication into his game, he had the opportunity of going right to the top and
I think perhaps in many ways Mike gives me a great deal of satisfaction because when
I did sign him many people said that he was never a top ten player. He's now number six
in the world and I think the big thing when a player gets to that level then all of a
sudden he starts believing that he can win tournaments and I would liken Mike very much
to Dennis Taylor who was on the pro circuit for 13 years before he won a tournament and
I think Mike has the capabilities within himself now to win a tournament. I've been a pro now
for about nine years, my tenth season coming up and I struggled a little bit. I got up
to about probably about 26, 27 on the world ranking list and then sort of levelled off
at that time and I had a pretty good season about three years ago and managed to get into
the top 16 which is what I've always wanted to do and then from then on it sort of leaped
up so I've sort of stagnated for three or four years. I was sort of going in and out
in the matches and getting a few results and wasn't really creating the opportunities
to win tournaments so I was just basically winning matches to pay the bills, thinking
which is the wrong attitude to be. I'm not thinking of big prizes, the question is if
I win this match I've got £3,500 or something and I can pay that off and I've got a few
quid extra. That's probably the attitude of a lot of the new professionals that come in
and are just basically playing match by match. Whereas now I'm wanting to go in, I've had
the taste of earning £30,000 or £40,000 in the lump and I'm wanting to win tournaments.
In effect the money doesn't really come into it because we don't actually see that now.
It's just basically about winning now and I want to win as much as possible. That is
one of my faults over the years, I haven't worked hard enough at my game. You have to
work at this game and it's all about having all the ability but it's the hours that need
to be put in during the day that people don't see. The public feel that we just turn up
and play and we become world champions. It doesn't work that way. I mean, OK Steve Davis
has won the world championship six times but the amount of work that he's put in to get
that, it's like a job. You know, you're there nine to five and you put a few hours in. I
would possibly admit that I don't practice enough and more than I should do. I have to
try and change that to be more successful. But that is really the lesson, it doesn't
matter how much ability you've got, you still have to work on your game day in, day out.
You see the rewards in the end, it helps when you're under pressure. When you're actually
under pressure on the TV, it's OK playing in the club but when the pressure comes on
and you feel that you've put the work in and the practice, you know that it can back you
up and if it's not there, there's always that little bit of doubt in the back of your mind
that it's not going to happen. But if the work has been put in in the beginning, you
know that hopefully it will come through. Yeah, I think there's a lot to be learned.
The new players are coming through now. I think they're possibly thinking they're just
going to get in and things are going to happen. There are exceptions. I mean, Stephen obviously
is different class, he's come through 19, 20 years of age and he's got it all. You do
get the exceptions to the rule. But I mean, the majority of the young lads that have come
through would probably expect that they've won everything as an amateur, they can just
come through and win everything as a professional. It doesn't work that way. It took me three
or four years to settle in and it was hard work. The transition is very, very big from
amateur to professional. It's a totally different game, totally different setup and the attitude
has to be totally different. I think basically what I've done is been more professional over
the last few seasons. I've been mentally harder on and off the table, which has helped. But
at the end of the day, if you're having a bad trot, you just have to keep plugging away
and hope that you turn it around and it comes good.
Just going to play a couple of trick shots for you. The first one, what we're going to
try and do is to send the white, the cube ball over the 15 reds, hopefully through the
triangle, pop the black into the corner pocket. Okay, a little bit more difficult this time.
You see we've got the black surrounded by three reds on the side cushion. What we're
going to try and do is hit the white onto the first red. Hopefully we'll knock the two
reds out of the way. The black will come across the table over the triangle and reds into
the corner pocket.
We're just going to start off with a few power shots now. Power shots, as you know, require
very accurate cueing. You've got to be cueing really sweetly through the ball. So we'll
do a few different power shots just to show you what can be achieved when you are cueing
through the ball nicely.
This first one is just imagine it comes to the end of the game. You're on the pink and
the black. You receive pink and black. The black's at the other end of the table. You
need to pop the pink into the corner bag and drag the white all the way up the tail because
you've landed dead straight. So the idea would be you'd landed dead straight. So get on the
ball. Just let the cue go straight through nice and smoothly. And as you're hitting the
ball, you're really powering it through, pulling back quick off the white. You've got a lot
of backspin on the white to pull it right up to the end of the table.
I'm going to go for the long red. It's the full length of the table. Just plain ball
in the middle of the white.
I'm going to try and attempt to pop the red into the corner pocket. Stun over off the
high cushion. Finish on the black.
Well, Darren, I first heard about a few years ago and it was actually the enemy that pointed
me in the direction match from Terry Griffiths. And Terry was telling me about a very, very
good young player down in Wales. And I watched his progress through the amateur ranks. And
of course in 1987, he capped a tremendous amateur career by winning the world amateur.
From there, we had a situation where his father approached me and we signed contracts in early
1988. But I think Darren, probably because he won the world amateur championship, in
many ways it was the transition for him to professional was more difficult in as much
that he'd been at the very top of the tree in the amateur game. And of course coming
into the professional ranks where most of the players are all great players, he found
it pretty difficult. But he's settled in now. He's won the Pontons Invitational. He
was runner up to Hallet and the Dutch Open. And he's looking forward, as I am, to a lot
of success in the future now.
As an amateur, I won the Welsh amateur. I think it was 1987. I finished top in the pro
tickets. That's where I got my ticket from. I was going in as second or third man, I think,
because I was top of the pro tickets. And I went on to the world amateur championship.
I won that to become world champion. So I was automatically getting my ticket. Then
I finished number one in the top 100 Q satellite rankings for that year. So that capped the
year off really. So I just turned pro then. It all come, 87, 88, all my successes. I won
about nine pro-arm, 10 pro-arm tournaments. But I lost in about nine or 10 finals as well.
So I had a good year. I got about 20, 25 finals. And I won the big ones, which was the main
one.
The thing is, is to practice really hard. Practice on your own, which I lost track of
a little bit at the beginning of this year. I started playing everybody. But my manager
then got me back to playing on my own. And now I like to do half on my own, half with
someone. But I think it's just you practice as many hours as you can. You play in as many
tournaments as you can within reason. And you just progress from there.
The thing is, if you're not in the right frame of mind, you're very hasty. You play the wrong
shots. Shot selection is one of the biggest things in the game, the same as consistency
and concentration. If you're not concentrating, you can forget it. But at the same time, if
you're concentrating and still playing the wrong shots, you're just making life hard
for yourself. If you're in the right frame of mind, you pick the right shots. If you're
not, you don't. You pick the wrong shots. So things just don't go right.
So I think the last few months I've just adopted a positive attitude. I've started attacking
like I used to in my earlier years. And it's been paying off. Well, if the young players
are just starting off, I suppose it's just a say to keep their heads down and get on
with it. Like practice hard and hope you get the right breaks. Because you do need a bit
of luck. You need really to fall in. I've been lucky. I had a good sponsor. My dad done
it for the first year or two. Then I had a real good sponsor for the next two years.
And I've been very, very lucky to fall in to Cue Masters. I expect his 100, 110 pros
would give their right arm to be in the group that I'm in. So I'm very lucky that way.
And for someone who's watching the video, if they are keen on snooking, they're good.
It's to get someone behind them that is going to look out for their best interests and not
just their own. So that'd be the thing. Just to practice and hope that you find someone
that's really good to back you.
The most important thing, obviously if you want to win the frame, is score more points
than your opponent. The easiest way of doing this is by building a break round about the
pink and black. Because they make the most points. So I'm going to try and build a small
break by putting reds with pinks and blacks.
Roll off the cushion with the top of the white for the next red.
I'm thinking about two shots ahead each time, with an angle on each shot to move to the next ball.
Now I need to deep screw off the cushion from the black.
I've not come far enough, so I'm going to roll off the cushion and hopefully get the pink.
Straight pink in the corner, so I'm going to screw back for the next red at the same pocket.
I'm going to try and get the pink.
Straight pink in the corner, so I'm going to screw back for the next red at the same pocket.
This time, following through the top of the white for the black.
Now I'm going to add lots of top on the white to follow through of two cushions for the next red.
This time, a small stun for the black.
This time, a small stun for the black. Now I've left myself a nice angle to get up for the yellow.
I've come a little bit too far with the black, so I'm going to have to use the rest for the yellow.
Just a plain ball shot for the green.
Nice and straight in the green, so all I have to do is stun the white to stay on the brown.
Blunt with the white.
I never want to leave myself straight on any color because it makes it more difficult to get in the next color.
Another stun for the blue.
Another soft screw for the pink.
I haven't come quite far enough so I'm going to have to use the rest to pot the pink and stun off two cushions.
One ball left to win the game. Black in the corner, plain ball in the white.
Now bonus, we cleared the lot.
We're here today to do some break building. We just did a few shots of the break off.
The balls have spread out nicely for us, so we're going to try now and make a break.
Just starting off with the easy pots, nice and easy, a nice flow on the cue action.
So I'm going to try and pot the red straight in the corner bag, just leave myself on the black in this corner.
And now I'm going to pot this black in the opposite corner, just stun up a few inches for the red into the same bag.
Just going to play the red into the corner bag off the cush for the black back into this corner.
Just going to follow through on the black into the corner pocket to leave the white just about around there for the red back into this corner pocket.
I'm just going to put a little bit of bottom on this red now to pot the red into the corner, just to stun it up around for the black back into the same pocket.
Same sort of shot, but a little bit higher up on the table now, black into the corner pocket just to stun the white up through the gap for the reds back into the corner.
And I'm going to follow straight through on this red to leave the white around there for a nice little angle on the black to play up into the middle of the table.
Right now I'm on the black that I can play a number of shots, I can stun up for this red in the corner, onto that red, for this red back into this corner.
I'm just going to stun through the gap to leave the white hopefully around about there for the red back into the same pocket as the black.
Now again, I've under-ed it a little bit, so I'm going to change our plans a little bit with playing this red into the middle by there just for the white to come down, for the blue back into the middle bag.
Now with this blue shot, I'm just going to pop the blue into the middle, just stun the white down through the gap, down for one of these two reds, knowing if I make a mess of it, I'm going to land on one of them two or the red in the middle.
I'm bridging over this ball, so I've got to be a little bit careful not to touch the ball and not to skew it from the cue action.
So I'm going to pop the red into the corner bag and just follow straight through with the white for the black straight into the other pocket.
Now I'm going to pop the black into this corner pocket with a little bit of bottom on the white to stun the white up here for the red back into this corner.
I'm going to pop the red into this corner pocket, middle of the white, off the cushion with a little bit of right hand side, the pink back into the corner pocket.
Pop the pink into the corner pocket with a little bit of bottom, just to stun the white back, put it straight back into that pocket again.
Pop the red into the corner pocket, follow straight through with the white for the black into the opposite pocket.
I'm going to pop the black into the corner pocket, stun up through the gap for a choice of the two reds into the middle bag.
I'm going to pop this red now into the middle bag, just stun the white back about two inches for the pink back into the corner.
Pop the pink into the corner bag, just stun the white for the red back into the middle.
I drop my chalk red into the middle bag, same sort of shot, just stun in the white again to leave myself on the pink for this corner bag.
I'm just going to pop this pink now, stun back about eight inches for one of these reds into the corner bag.
I've had to take the rest because I've just over-it that a little bit.
So I want to pop this red into the corner bag, just stun the white over to by half for the pink back into the same bag.
I want to pop the pink into the corner bag, just stun back a few inches again for the red into the corner.
Pop this red in the corner, just middle of the white, so as it comes off the cushion it just slides down a little bit for the black back into the corner bag.
I've gone a bit straight on this, so I've got to use a little bit more power in the shot.
The idea is to do it to white with a touch of right hand side, pop the black into the corner bag, stun the white off the cushion, up for the red in the middle.
If I've under-it it, I'm going to get a shot at the red in the corner bag.
Now with this shot I'm just going to pop the red into the middle bag, the white is just going to roll up and just cannon onto the blue, hopefully to leave me with a shot on the blue in the middle.
The blue in the middle, I'm going to pop the middle of the ball on the white with right hand side for the white to hit the bottom cushion, a little bit of right hand side to check the white off the cushion, straight back up for the red into the corner pocket.
Now as I'm playing these shots, I'm always playing a few shots ahead, now I'm already looking to see where I'm going to stick this red ball, which is the best pocket for me to play it into.
So I'm looking to get a good angle on the black, pop this red in the corner to land on the black.
To stand over for the red back into this middle pocket.
Now I'm going to pop this red in the middle pocket, just in the middle of the white so as the white runs down, it comes down for one of the bulk colors down the other end of the table.
Now we're on the yellow perfect, so I'll play the yellow. Just a little stunt shot, pop the yellow in the corner, the white back a few inches.
Stitch these trousers up a bit. Just going to pop the yellow into the corner pocket, drag back about six inches for the green back into the other corner pocket.
Think of it that just about right. So same sort of shot, just done back about two or three inches for the brown in the opposite pocket.
Pop the brown into the corner bag and just pull back with the white to land round about by here for the blue into the middle bag.
I've under-it that slightly, so we're going to have to pop the blue into the middle bag, stand the white off the bottom cushion, we're left hand side to check the white to come back up for the pink into that pocket.
Pink into the corner pocket, a little stunt shot down onto the black in the same pocket.
And the black, just a plain ball shot straight into the corner bag.
Right, as we said at the beginning of the session, we're going to try and make a break. We've just accumulated a one, three, four break, so it just proves that if you do make things nice and simple and your cue action is nice and smooth, it is possible to clear the table or to make sizable breaks to win the frames.
My advice to anybody that's starting to play the game or that does play the game is to keep the game as simple as they possibly can.
I'm going to pop the red in this pocket and screw back for a choice of the yellow or the green.
It's going to be the yellow.
I'm going to stun with a touch of left hand side off this cushion to come down into the middle round about here and hopefully land in a red.
Nine.
Just a plain stunt shot for the black.
Ten.
I'm going to force the white off the cushion in the middle of the white ball.
Seventeen.
Top of the white to come around for the pink.
Twenty-three.
This time I'll be stunning, putting the pink in this pocket, stunning off the cushion for the red here.
A stun shot this time, a stun shot, putting the red, leaving the white round about this area to put the pink in this middle.
Five.
And now just a slight screw back to leave myself in this red here.
Fifty-one.
Fifty-two.
Fifty-three.
Fifty-seven.
You have to be this red into the corner and back up for the blue.
Fifty-seven.
All my boys are obviously very busy. They travel all over the world.
We'll shortly leave for New Zealand, Australia, Thailand.
Stephen, at twenty years of age, has already been to Japan, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore.
In fact, it's probably easier in his case, as the rest of the boys, to name countries that they haven't been to.
Now that takes a lot of energy. The travel is very tiring, long, long periods away from home.
But it's all in the going back to the basis of they have an opportunity of setting themselves up financially for life.
And I think that really is the thing that keeps them going.
The camaraderie, I think, between the players, they're all young players. They all get on very, very well together.
Their likes are very similar. They like similar type music, clothes, golf. They all play golf.
And really, during the season, which is becoming longer and longer, it's now effectively a ten-month season.
They don't get an awful lot of spare time. But when they do, they tend to spend listening to music or playing golf.
But I'm fortunate that they all got on well together, because that is very, very important in a team atmosphere.
We call Michael Michelle, just to wind him up a little bit.
We used to call Daz Daz because he's always getting whitewashed. And now it's just Daz for Darren.
And John is... we call John Sickaz.
John Sickaz. Because the only one who's got to beat you is Sickaz.
Stephen likes to wind us all up. Me especially.
It's actually John Carroll, our driver. It's nothing to do with us.
He started it, yeah.
Stephen's like a junior, John Carroll. So he comes in and says,
Darren, you're going to watch some more of my unbelievable potting today.
And it's like, he's got the white on a string, whereas I've got it on a rope.
Just little things like that. You're out there and you're doing the business and you're working on that.
But when you come off the table, you have a drink. We might have beaten each other,
but we'll have a drink at the bar afterwards and talk about the game and things like that.
There's a lot of players that keep themselves to themselves in different groups and stuff.
But at the end of the day, you're just playing a game, you're playing a game to win.
But after that, you're just like anybody else, really.
If you take the top 32 players in the world, they're all great players.
But some are more successful than others. And I think that's where the psychological situation comes in.
A player has got to believe in himself, he's got to dedicate himself.
And snooker players are no different from any other sportsman.
They have all the problems off the table. There's gambling, there's drinking, there's women.
There's all sorts of side effects that can take their mind away from snooker.
But really the ones that are absolutely, totally successful, the Davises.
And I think my boys, because I'm in the fortunate position to have two, three, six in the world at this point in time.
And certainly my players have got there by sheer graft. Davis made it by sheer graft.
And I think it's a question of, again going back to the psychology of it,
that players in the top 32 have got to believe that they've got to work, they've got to dedicate and apply themselves.
This time bottom of the white, just to leave a slight angle on the brown.
Every shot I'm playing I'm leaving an angle on the colour to get onto the next colour.
Bottom of the white to get down for the blue.
This time I'm going to have to play the middle of the white, pop the blue off the bottom cushion to come back up for the pink into this corner.
Now pop the pink into this corner.
A lot of topspin to have the black into the same pocket.
Now to finish off just a plain ball black.
A bonus to clear the table.
I think it's very important for the young players when they start off to get the basics right, to get a good technique.
I think it's of paramount importance that they actually go and get a book or a video like this one indeed,
to study the technique and the basics and put themselves right to start off with.
I think if they don't do that then they're going to find it very, very difficult either A to improve or B to go back and put it right.
So it is important that they do that in the first place.
Young players coming into the game have got to apply themselves and they've got to dedicate themselves.
That means that they've got to be prepared to spend long hours on the practice table.
The object really is to get total control of the cue ball.
If they can do that, if they can put the cue ball exactly where they want it on the table.
And the greatest exponent of that of course is Steve Davis.
I think any player that comes into the game that's not prepared to look at Davis,
not prepared to apply himself in the way that Davis has, has got no chance of achieving the number one slot.
Now if a player, if a young player can look at his career over a three or five year period,
consider the amount of money that he can win in that period of time.
He can effectively set himself up for the rest of his life.
If you consider the season gone by, John Parrott has picked up over 300,000,
Stephen Hendry has picked up over 300,000 and that is just on the table earnings.
Of course there's all sorts of things on the side, endorsements, exhibitions, etc.
But the key word really is application and dedication.
Music