CRITICS - CAN THEY BE A PLAYER'S BEST FRIEND?

It came a little out of the blue in the post-match Mark Allen/Michael White press conference when the Northern Irishman revealed how much he had been stung by comments made in a TV feature showed on BBC Wales earlier that day, in which a panel of Steve Davis, Ken Doherty and Shaun Murphy analysed strengths and weaknesses of the leading players. This BBC feature was in fact first shown at the Masters in January.

Davis started off by saying: “Mark Allen…not being disrespectful, but not necessarily Premiership, more Championship material”, and it appeared that it was this that had wound up Allen the most. Doherty was overall more complimentary but also labelled Allen “inconsistent” and pointed to Allen’s positional play and focus as issues.

Allen does seem the type of personality though that could turn this to his advantage. If such criticism makes a player go away and work even harder at their perceived weaknesses, it can do them a favour. He told Terry Griffiths how wound up he was before the White clash, and took it out on his young Welsh opponent.

Of course, Stuart Bingham was famously motivated and driven to succeed after a certain player accused him of having no bottle before an Australian Open quarter-final. It pushed him on, saw him collect titles and ultimately a brilliant world championship win beating three tournament favourites in a row in Ronnie O’Sullivan, Judd Trump and Shaun Murphy. The originator of the “no bottle” remarks? You’ve remembered it – Mark Allen.

ALLEN FINDS LOSING IS JUST PANTS

An early ‘engaging with fans’ award for this week goes to Mark Allen, who might have surprisingly lost a match to Mark Joyce blowing that quarter of the draw wide open, but not his sense of humour.

Taking questions on Twitter before his flight home, the Northern Irishman was asked: “Do you ever worry that your pants might split when bending down for a shot?”

Unfazed, the two-time ranking event winner replied: “Coming from a plus-sized gentleman, it is always on my mind.”

PANDAS FROZEN OUT OF FINAL WALK-ON

Very few among the UK-based officials and media escaped having to wear some part of a panda costume in Chengdu to keep promoter ‘Jerry’ happy. But tournament director Mike Ganley decided to spare the two finalists the indignity of being escorted into the arena by a bear apiece.

A trial run on the Saturday was enough to convince Ganley, generally keen to indulge local sentiment and help publicise Sichuan province’s most iconic creatures, that the black and white costumes did little for the gravitas of the occasion to the wider world and the plug was diplomatically pulled.

Instead a chuckling Mark Allen and Ricky Walden left the mascots in the corridor on their way out to start the best of 19 frame showpiece.

FIREWORKS ON AND OFF THE TABLE

Loud fireworks being set off outside the Sichuan Tennis Center, presumably for a wedding on the Saturday night, could be heard in the arena during frame 12 of the Mark Allen vs Mark Williams semi-final at the International Championship, entirely appropriate given the potting carnage that was occurring on the table.

Allen’s breaks were  92, 71, 52, 54,  105, 55, 77, and a superbly compiled 67 while Williams chipped in with 120, 135, 70, 84, 49, 102, 46 and 86 to level at 8-8.

In characteristically phlegmatic and sporting style Williams was already well on the way to shrugging off the inevitable disappointment as he left the post-match press conference, insisting on the way out after the 9-8 thriller: “You won’t see many matches like that.”

SPORTSMANSHIP ALIVE AND WELL IN SNOOKER

It is a shame large chunks of the media only ever want to cover snooker when there is a match-fixing story – and knowing sports editors as I do, can’t see that changing for a couple of them any time soon even if some are fairer in their coverage.

But the other side of snooker, the one we see almost every day and in every match, is the sportsmanship on show from players from top to bottom of the rankings during the contests when fouls are habitually called on themselves and other courtesies shown to an opponent in all manner of ways.

And there was a further but different example of this late on Thursday night at the International Championship in Chengdu. Earlier that evening Mark Williams and Mark Allen had fought like tigers to get through their respective quarter-finals against Ronnie O’Sullivan and Michael White – and more of the same could be expected in their Saturday semi-final, when no quarter would be asked or given in a huge match for both.

But that was for another day. And the pair could be seen cheerily shooting the breeze about the day’s events in the hotel lobby until 1.30am over a shared McDonalds takeaway.