Whilst everyone involved is getting ready for The Decider in Goffs, Ronnie’s interview yesterday has caused some stirr … people on social media accusing him to give a negative image of his sport once again, and suggesting that he’d better shut up.

Well, there’s a few things I want to say about this:

• The media once again somehow twisted what he said: the main subject of the interview was the Irish Legends Cup, and his statement about snooker not being a career he would recommend to a young person right now, was only an honest answer to a question he was asked in the last minutes of the interview. Yet they made this the headline of the article, and, worse, some papers ONLY reported that bit, ignoring everything else he said in that interview. Baffling enough, some of the culprit are Irish media and he was promoting an event in Ireland!
• What he said is only the truth: many players have come out recently about how difficult it is to make any sort of living in snooker nowadays. Which parent would be keen to see their child take a route where they have next to no chance to earn  half decent money unless they manage to get at the very, very top of an extremely difficult and demanding sport? Only a handful will; would you take the risk? The nearly £ 1000000 earned by Mark Selby over the last two years is a case of a tree hiding the forest. Neil Robertson, on twitter,  came to Ronnie’s rescue with this: “I wouldn’t recommend this sport as a “career” while there is 128 on the tour either. Atm it’s top 20 or you’re better off flipping burgers”.  
• If the players say nothing, do nothing, it won’t change, that’s a certainty, if they do … it might … maybe. I’m not too hopeful though. Players should realise that they are the sports most valuable asset, without them, it’s nothing. But they aren’t organised, it’s an individual sport played by individualist people. And most are too scared to say a word anyway.

Meanwhile, the Irish Legends Cup decider promises to be a great event. Jason Francis has been posting some “appetizers” on twitter in the form of pictures, of the players hotel,  it’s practice room and a very special set of balls. I’ll be on my way tomorrow morning, with camera, lenses and everything … so expect a good few pictures of both the gala dinner and the event proper over the week-end.