WHEN THE DUST SETTLES...

Well that was fun, at least for those of us not having to play.

Player opinion on the new round robin qualifying system employed for the Royal London Watches GrandPrix was mixed. Some were for it but most of those I spoke to were against it - though many of these failed to qualify.

One well known player I spoke to off the record said this: "There was no need to do this for the qualifiers. It's something television has demanded but there's no TV here. Everyone's had to come here for five days but some players will earn as little as £250 out of it. It should have been knockout. Best of fives are too short."

Others were for it and I have to say I was surprised at how well it worked. It was certainly exciting on the last day and I'd suggest things will be closer still in Aberdeen because the groups contain only six players.

On balance, I prefer knockout snooker, but this has been an interesting experiment and should guarantee tension in spades at the televised phase.

The qualifiers were:
Group A: Issara Kachaiwong, Jamie Jones
Group B: Michael Judge, Dominic Dale
Group C: Jamie Cope, Paul Davison
Group D: Judd Trump, David Roe
Group E: Liang Wenbo, Gerard Greene
Group F: Robin Hull, Fergal O'Brien
Group G: Ben Woollaston, Andrew Norman
Group H: Mark Allen, Tom Ford

You'll recall I tried to predict who would get through shortly before it all started. As it transpired, I got 7 out of 16 right: not great, but not a disaster either.