Fergal O’Brien targets work with professionals after beginning coaching journey

Fergal O’Brien is hoping to pass on his vast snooker knowledge to professional players, aiming to work in a mentoring role on tour as he continues his journey into coaching.

The 51-year-old turned pro in 1991 and is still on tour so has seen it all on the snooker table, and more importantly off the baize.

The former British Open champion and Masters finalist is already coaching in Dublin, offering advice from beginners to good amateur players, but hopes he can take up a role with professionals who could do with a hand learning the ropes on tour.

‘That’s what I want to do down the road,’ O’Brien told Metro.co.uk. ‘What Peter Ebdon is doing, that role, working with a couple of players.

‘I’m still working with Chris Henry and he coaches a few players, so down the road apart from coaching people in the club, young players helping them through their journey, top amateurs and then the pros.

‘Obviously with pros they can play the shots as well or better than I can, but that’s where the experience of being a pro and dealing with all the challenges comes in.

‘Whether it’s the travel, the loneliness. I think when you get on tour you realise that playing snooker is the easy bit. It’s away from the tournaments, the time management, the practice, the preparation, the sacrifices, the dealing with disappointments. Then the day-in-day-out stuff at tournaments, the best hotels, just life as a professional on tour.

‘Obviously I’ve experienced all that and if I didn’t experience it, people told me at one stage, so I have a responsibility to pass that on. Certainly people starting off as professionals, I definitely think I have something I can add to their package.’

O’Brien has shown what he can do in helping out a professional already as he helped turn around the form of Shaun Murphy in 2019 when the Magician needed some stern words of advice.

The former world champion had moved to Dublin and started practicing in the same club as the Irishman, who was not afraid to deliver some home truths when asked for them.

Fergal explained on the Talking Snooker podcast: ‘One day he said to me, “what do you think about my game?”

‘I said, if you want to know I’ll tell you. Firstly, double your practice. Secondly, the bit you are doing is a disgrace, it’s a shambles, you might as well be playing darts.

‘You’re floating around, looking at email, half an hour, cup of coffee. You’re in the club six hours and you’re playing for two. No. Your concentration is atrocious. You’ve too many other interests outside of playing.

‘I remembered reading when he first got to the Crucible he said that he wanted people to ask who the greatest ever is out of Hendry, Davis and Murphy.

‘I said to him that guy at 16, those aspirations, that guy is far removed from the guy you are at the moment.’

It was heavy stuff from O’Brien to dish out, but Murphy took it in the way it was intended, put in the work and in no time at all he had reached the finals of the International Championship and Shanghai Masters before winning the China Championship in August-September 2019.

‘To be fair to him, he’s number 8 in the world and a Triple Crown winner, I’m ranked 60 and couldn’t spell quarter-finals at this stage,’ said O’Brien.

‘Whilst he’s been humble enough to ask me, I gave him both barrels and to be fair to him he came in the next morning and cleared the line-up nine times in a row. He kept doing that and got himself back into a groove.

‘Basically from that rollicking he got to two finals and then won a third event. So obviously I clicked something with him, but ultimately he won the matches and put the work in. He was well able to take the advice.

‘He earned about £300,000 in a month, I told my dad about the chat we had and he said, “will you ever look at yourself in the mirror and say the same things?”‘

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