HOME AND AWAY DAVID MORRIS: JOHNNY WATTERSONtalks to 20-year-old Kilkenny snooker player David Morris about the challenges of training and making his mark on the professional tour since he moved into it in 2006

DAVID MORRIS is a professional snooker player from Kilkenny. The 20-year-old was the youngest amateur champion in Ireland at the age of 17 and following his third successive senior title went on the professional tour in 2006.

At 17 years old I turned professional. That’s the way it works in Ireland. The [amateur] champion each year goes on the professional tour.

I started out playing pool with friends in the garage at home and got quite good. Then when I was seven, dad put me down to play snooker. That was tough. I was too small. But by the time I was 10 I could get breaks of 50.

Still, you’d be watching players on television and seeing what they could do and you’d think that you were crap. I won the national under-16 title at 12-years-old and at 15-years-old, I won the senior title.

I won that for three years, which no one had done before and that’s when I turned professional.

Initially, you start on the tour ranked at between 80 and 96, you have to stay in the top 64 in the first year or else you fall out the following year.

That’s the hard thing because it can be quite difficult to find tournaments to play in.

I’d travel quite a bit up to Dublin and over to Britain. Most of the world snooker is based in Britain, 99 per cent of it anyway. Even the qualification tournaments for the tournaments in Shanghai and Beijing are held in Britain because otherwise they’d have to pay to bring most of the players over to China.

I play with Fergal O’Brien quite a lot and Ken Doherty too. We organise tournaments in Dublin between ourselves to keep us match sharp. We look on it as training.

Players in Britain can also find it hard to get tournaments and sometimes they come over to Dublin because they know we are playing there.

I’d usually travel to Britain twice every month, although, coming up to Dublin for me is also travelling.

The main tour is from the end of August until the World Championships in May, so in the summer you are going around looking for tournaments to play.

If you are playing on a Saturday, you usually arrive on a Wednesday to get used to the table and get some practice in. I’d travel with Joe Delaney and then Fergal (O’Brien) would come over to play after us.

There are only 96 players on the professional tour, but the way it works is that if you are a newcomer you start in the first rounds of the qualifying events.

I broke into the top 64 in my second season so then I’d start in the second round of the qualifying. The next step for me would be to get into the top 48 in the world and then I’d play a round less again.

The top 32 players in the world get into the first round of the main draw and that’s what the qualifying tournaments are about, to get into that draw.

Then there is a two-year ranking list, so if you have played well in the season before the one you’re playing in that makes life easier. For example, I’d a good season the year just gone, so that gives me a bit of a springboard and now I hope I can carry that on into this season.

I’ve travelled all over the place, to just about every country in Europe. I’ve also been to Bahrain and New Zealand.

You just make your own friends when you’re travelling, but I don’t get lonely.

There’s too much to be doing and too much to be thinking about. You just don’t have time to stop between practising, getting the hotel and getting to the venue.

You’re just doing other things and you don’t notice (the time). I’d also be with the other Irish lads Fergal (O’Brien), Ken (Doherty), Joe (Delaney), so you would never get bored or lonely.

I’m now ranked at 52 and I’ve played in all of the qualifying events.

I hope now to get into the top 32 because to get on to television you have to be in the top 32. I did it twice this season but the event wasn’t televised.

To get you into the top 32 round you very often have to play in a different venue like Pontins and the like.

Then if you make it you are told to come back and you’re in the main venue, which might be Wembley or wherever.

Next season I’ll try to get to a lot more venues. I lost to Bo (Liang Wen) 10-8 in the (World Championship) qualifying this year so I know that I’m good enough.

I’m losing at the last hurdle and that’s also a matter of experience. It’s not like golf where they have 25 tournaments a year. I’m hoping this year will be a good one for me.