HOEVEN - On the day that Eddy Merckx won his sixth big tournament this year, a thousand kilometres away, the key player was sorely missed by his Dutch team. In the Dutch three cushion premier league the top match between SIS Schoonmaak and L&B Ledermode was played in Hoeven for the ninth round. The Brabant team, without Merckx, lost 8-0 in its home match. SIS Schoonmaak from The Hague now is five points ahead of three competitors. The team could have been close to the title already if the league would not be decided by play-off gamess. Also HCR Prinsen had a bad day without points.
The SIS team has the formula to dominate the premier division. Actually it's very simple: four strong Dutch players on the team who don't have international obligations. The other teams for the title, led by international players, are far behind before the winter. L&B would have been stronger of course with Merckx, Prinsen with Jaspers, Bousema with Horn and Dallinga with Caudron. The ranking shows the consequence: a big gap. The leading team benefited and won in Hoeven thanks to Glenn Hofman (against Christiani 40-26 in 24), Jean van Erp (against Peter De Backer 40-38 in 33), Raimond Burgman (against Gerwin Valentijn 40-19 in 30) and Jeffrey Jorissen (against John Tijssen 40-26 in 31).
Two matches came out on top on this match day. Roland Forthomme was blown away by Stefan Galla in Zundert at the start and faced a hopeless 31-9 down. The Belgian slowly found his feeling and had a formidable end rush: a final run of 12 for a 40-37 win in 21 innings. Jean Paul de Bruijn did the opposite in Dallinga's home game against Frans van Kuyk (Eekhoorn). The Zeeland leader started 11 and 12 and led 23-1 after two innings. The setback after the break gave the match another look, but still De Bruijn won, 40-25 in 18 innings. Meerten Dallinga, the team boss, entertained the audience afterwards with an amusing comment: ,,We had expected this, of course, but after 23-1 in two innings, we all thought: he's gonna finish in four. That was a little bit disappointing.''
The Zundert-team took a 6-2 victory over Bousema thanks to the victory of Forthomme, as Peter Ceulemans also managed to deal with a disadvantage against Wesley de Jaeger and eventually won 40-29 in 23. Bousema's only win was recorded by Frans van Schaik, who defeated Barry van Beers 40-31 in 39. Dallinga played a draw thanks to De Bruijn and Van Acker, after being 4-0 down at the break. Salient detail: Jerry Hermans won 40-30 against Francis Forton in 33 innings. The score at the break: 21-0 in ten innings in favour of Hermans.
Two games ended in a draw: A1 Biljarts against 't Ivoor and Aardexpress against Burgmans Biljarts had a 4-4 score. Lindemann-Frings was 29-40 in 27, Rene Wijnen against Therese Klompenhouwer 40-39 in 38 and Christian Rudolph-Huub Wilkowski 40-26 in 24.