The Intermediate grade Billiards, the D. Cleaver Shield, has been played for 2025. The format being single 60-minute matches.
Unfortunately, Ian Thomas (runner-up in 2024) was unable to compete this year. However, Peter Taylor the defending champion from 2024 had a strong first round win scoring 129 points against Andy Herbel. Then a tight tussle with Ray Batchelor to secure a finals showdown for the second year in a row.
The bottom half of the draw was wide open and stacked with strong Intermediate Billiards players.
Darian Ward proved surprisingly tough competition, finding some form to score over 100 points in every round. He neither confirms nor denies that he may have been given some helpful coaching advice from Jeff Pickering during practice sessions.
The final match, between Darian Ward and Peter Taylor, was a deserving finish. Darian scored a run of solid scores across a few turns at the table and left Peter under pressure to chase.
Congratulations to Darian for the win, and to Peter for his consistency in these competitions over the past 5 years. Darian has now been bumped up to A Grade for 2026.
Thank you to all participants for making it such a challenging competition.