Ronnie O’Sullivan aimed a thinly-veiled dig in the direction of Shaun Murphy after the 41-year-old brought three cues to the Northern Ireland Open. The Rocket was on punditry duties for Eurosport as Murphy faced Chris Wakelin for a place in the quarter-finals at Waterfront Hall.
Murphy ended up crashing out of the tournament after losing by a 4-2 scoreline, with The Magician getting just two points on the board in the final three frames. It prompted a brutal dig from O’Sullivan, who took aim at his rival for bringing two extra cues despite failing to reach the last eight.
He said: “Have three cues if you’re winning, but when you keep getting pumped it don’t look good, does it? So start winning some matches before you start doing that.”
O’Sullivan has previously clashed with Murphy as a result of the former’s outspoken comments on the state of modern snooker. He said earlier this year that the game was ‘probably as bad as it has ever been’ in a public row over prize money, although he went on to skip a meeting with the WST in which the issue was discussed.
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Murphy, who was present at the meeting, later took aim at O’Sullivan by insisting that he is not helping anybody by speaking publicly about the sport’s issues.
“This isn’t about gagging orders or restricting free speech, it’s having the sense to realise some of these things are sensitive, and need dealing with in-house,” said Murphy. “We need to be a unified voice in snooker to grow the game and make it bigger and better and there is very little of that going around at the moment.
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“In simple mathematical terms, for prize money and number of tournaments, he is incorrect to say it is the worst it is ever been. I don’t know where he is coming from with his comments. He wasn’t at the meeting last week, neither were other players that have been vocal recently like Stephen Maguire and Ali Carter. They were no-shows as well.”
“If players don’t attend meetings and go through the proper channels, then WST and WPBSA won’t take them seriously. There are a lot of criticisms flying around, but not many solutions.”
O’Sullivan is not taking part at this month’s Northern Ireland Open after withdrawing from the tournament due to ‘medical reasons’. He is a three-time runner-up at the tournament, having lost the 2018, 2019 and 2020 finals to long-time rival Judd Trump.
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