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6 Tuesday <strong>February</strong> <strong>20</strong> <strong>20</strong>18<br />
Latest Christchurch news at www.star.kiwi<br />
PEGASUS POST<br />
Avonside teen leads NZ snooker team<br />
SPORTS<br />
• By Sophie Cornish<br />
“FALLING IN love with the<br />
game” is what Avonside’s Adam<br />
Lilley credits as the key to<br />
becoming a national title winner<br />
in cue sports.<br />
Lilley, 19, first picked up a cue<br />
at the age of five, with guidance<br />
from his mother Katherine<br />
Swain, a former North Yorkshire<br />
women’s pool champion in<br />
England.<br />
He will travel to Sydney next<br />
month to represent and captain<br />
the under-21 New Zealand team<br />
in the Oceania Billiard and<br />
Snooker Championships.<br />
It will be the fourth time he has<br />
competed at the championships,<br />
being only 14-years-old when he<br />
was first selected for the team.<br />
Lilley said his love for the<br />
game is what has brought him<br />
his success. “You have to put so<br />
much time into it, fall in love<br />
with it. You have to stay on top of<br />
it, if you have big breaks and take<br />
time out, it’s so hard to get your<br />
eye back in and be confident,” he<br />
said.<br />
Lilley’s coach Kelvin Dunlop<br />
spotted him at an RSA when<br />
he was nine-years-old and has<br />
coached him ever since.<br />
YOUNG TALENT: Avonside’s Adam Lilley will captain the under-21 New Zealand team in the Oceania Billiard and Snooker<br />
Championships next month. (Right) – By age 10, he was already an experienced player, picking up his first cue when he was<br />
five-years-old.<br />
“He saw I had a bit of talent<br />
and introduced me to the pool<br />
and snooker nights,” said Lilley.<br />
This led Lilley to win his first<br />
national title at the age of 14 in<br />
an under-18 eight-ball national<br />
championship. Then in <strong>20</strong>15, he<br />
went on to win another national<br />
title, the New Zealand B-grade<br />
men’s snooker championships.<br />
Lilley says this was his biggest<br />
achievement to date.<br />
He splits his time between The<br />
Cashmere Club and The Slate<br />
Room on Lichfield St, playing<br />
both snooker and American<br />
eight-ball. However, with the<br />
Oceania championships coming<br />
up, Lilley said it is now “seven<br />
days a week snooker.”<br />
He hopes he can move to the<br />
United States in the future to play<br />
professional nine-ball pool.<br />
“A couple of guys who have<br />
already been (to the US) I’ve<br />
gotten the better of a few times.<br />
So if I work to get better at nineball<br />
pool, hopefully I can be in<br />
their shoes one day.”<br />
However, there is no rush,<br />
he said, as he is hoping to turn<br />
professional by the time he is 25.<br />
“The top professionals are in<br />
their 30s and 40s. Most players<br />
in their peak these days are more<br />
experienced anyway,” he said.<br />
Farewell to the Godwits event<br />
Friday, 2 March <strong>20</strong>18<br />
Come along to the <strong>20</strong>th annual ceremony to wish<br />
the Godwits a safe journey back to their breeding<br />
grounds in Alaska.<br />
South Shore Spit<br />
Reserve —<br />
End of Rockinghorse<br />
Road<br />
Some parking available<br />
- or catch the # 60 bus<br />
(every 30 minutes)<br />
5:30 Free BBQ sausages<br />
– Music – Stalls<br />
– Childrens activities<br />
PLUS Book sale and<br />
signing of new children’s<br />
book on Godwits by<br />
author Marlene Bennetts<br />
6pm Talk by Andrew<br />
Crossland—Godwit<br />
expert before short<br />
guided walk to view<br />
birds up close.<br />
For more information contact: info@estuary.org.nz
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