Austen's England odds (From Daily Echo)

Austen's England odds

6:00am Saturday 2nd July 2011

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HISTORY suggests Austen Petty has a better than one in eight chance of playing snooker for England.

The 13-year-old has just bowed out of the Eastleigh & District Under-13 League with back-to-back Premier titles.

Altogether, there have been 37 seasons and 26 different champions.

Of those, Dan Hildyard, Nick Jennings and Jordan Winbourne have gone on to represent their country.

But of course there is still time for others to gain their first cap.

Bouwe Bosma, for instance, is heading in the right direction. The 15-year-old competes on the EASB Regional Junior Tour and has ambitions to join Billy Castle, Jennings, Winbourne and Shane Castle amongst the elite top-48 under-21s in the country.

Ben Courcha and Kane Bellows are two others that spring to mind. However, they need to kick on to take their game to a new level.

Where was Shane Castle in the list of under-13 champions? He retired from the league aged seven because the competition was not good enough.

And we mustn’t forget the only girl in the list. Suzie Opacic joined the World Ladies Billiards & Snooker Association circuit and rose to number five in the world.

What about former under-18 champions? Remarkably, the odds of international glory rise to more than one in three.

Of the 19 different champions over the 37 leagues, seven donned the three-lions waistcoat. That’s an astonishing 36 percent.

They are: Alex Dunkley, Billy Castle, Shane Castle, Nick Jennings, Jordan Winbourne, Dan Hildyard and current Town Champion Mike Finn.

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