The final MNT of the season took place last night, at a packed venue at London Snooker Tooting.  All eyes were on Ramesh "Ramma Jamma" Gokhul and Rod "the God" Altes, as they were fighting it out to finish top of the pops in 2022, and seemingly, all Rod had to do was to perform better than Ram, and he stood a great chance of overtaking him in the final tournament of 2022.  Such drama, such anticipation, and eyes were firmly fixed on these two top dogs.

The first round was full of twists and turns, with 4 matches going hill-hill.  Gauhar Khan and Ranj Sarraj played out a tense game.  Khan has recently shown that he can compete well at this level, and it wasn't a surprise that he fought well to get into a winning position, but Ranj stepped up to the plate and finally came through to win.  Meanwhile, Glen "the Hitman" Hargreaves, embroiled in a legal battle over naming rights for "the Hitman" with Gabriel "Hitman" Vasilache, took on Andy "Banks" Curzon.  Andy's unique style bamboozled the big man from Newcastle, but Glen clung on to fight his way to hill-hill.  In the end, however, Glen just couldn't keep up and Andy C inched over the line.  Meanwhile, Dan "the Destroyer" Suh faced Joe Granville.  The Destroyer blitzed his way into a 3-0 lead, but with an horrific miss to go 4-0, Joe ground his way back and won 4 racks on the spin to get to the hill first.  The Destroyer is, though, feared throughout Tooting, and after finally recovering from his horrific miss, came back to destroy Joe in the final two racks to progress.  And finally, Ciaran Boylan and Henri Linnainmaa played out a really tense affair, knowing that the winner would go on to face the Destroyer.  It was unsurprising that both players knew that with so much at stake, real steel and grit was required to progress.  It wasn't much of a surprise, either, that this match went to hill-hill, but in the end, Ciaran took his chance to get the opportunity to destroy the Destroyer.

Only one whitewash in the first round, with Rod the God on a mission to dispose of Saman in as quick a time as possible, sending out a clear message to Ram that there was only one thing on his mind, and that was to end the year as Number 1.  

The second round is where the real action took place. Despite only joining the MNT in late September, Martinho Correia has a record that is pretty much on par with Ram and Rod in terms of win percentage.  Facing Muhammed "he's the greatest" Ali, Martinho had to call on his experience against the wily old snooker cue wielding potting machine, and despite the fright, ended up winning 5-4.  Doug "the Shark" Clark spent much of his second round tie shaking his head, looking like he'd seen a ghost, but somehow dug deep, took his chances, and came through 5-4.  In the meantime, with Ciaran on a massive high, and in a similar vein to Morocco getting past Spain on penalties to face Portgual, Ciaran exceeded expectations to progress further by causing a massive upset against the Destroyer.  All eyes, though, were fixed on Ram and Rod.  Rod was up against the highly dangerous Tomasz Jedlecki.  Tom's not been in the best of form of late, but on his day can and will beat anyone, and today was his day.  5-2 winner over Rod, leaving Rod looking nervously over at Ram, to see first place slipping away before his eyes. 

Ram, was up against the highly menacing looking Gabriel.  We all know that Gabriel is one of the best players in Tooting, with levels of consistency that almost match Ram and Rod.  He strikes fear into many opponents, and he is fearful of no-one.  Least of all Ram or Rod.  Determined to finish off the year with a statement of intent for 2023, Gabriel took every chance that came to him to win 5-3, and send Ram crashing out, wondering if he had, indeed, slipped to second place in the last tournament of 2022.  Speaking after the match, Gabriel turned to the camera to tell his army of fans: "I'm the biggest fish here now, only small fish can stop me".  

Into the Quarters, and despite no Ram and Rod, what a line-up we had.  Two of the old school crew, Sunny Garib and Martinho faced each other in a match that could well have taken place 30 years ago.  However, roll onto 2022 and Martinho demonstrated that he hadn't lost any of his magic to win 5-3.  Tomasz kept the momentum up, after beating Rod, with a 5-3 win over Ranj.  Tash was up against a high-flying Ciaran, who was fresh off his historic destruction of the Destroyer.  Tash was one of the favourites to win after Ram and Rod exited in the previous round, but found the challenge of Ciaran to be a tough one, and found a way to scrape through 5-4.  And finally, Gabriel went into a tough clash against Doug, but Doug couldn't quite mount enough of a challenge, and bowed out at this stage, losing 5-3.

The first semi-final was between Martinho and Tom.  Tom was looking pretty good, and was feeling confident after knocking Rod out earlier.  This promised to be a great match-up, but Martinho went into the game with a fierce determination and cruised through 5-0.  In the other semi, Tash and Gabriel fought it out, but Gabriel was looking imperious and played some beautiful stuff to win 5-2, setting up a tasty final between himself and Martinho.

And the final did not disappoint.  Martinho is not only in-form, but has a huge amount of experience and know-how.  Gabriel is, simply, one of the big guns at Tooting and when he plays well, there isn't much stopping the hard-staring Romanian.  So not much of a surprise that this final went to hill-hill.  but with all that confidence flowing through his icy veins, Gabriel snatched the win and sets the tone for the 2023 season.  Speaking after his win, Gabriel said "all people talk about is Ram and Rod, but next year, they will only be talking about me".

So, despite all the talk of a Rod vs Ram final to really work out who was going to end up in first place, Gabriel and Martinho really showed that 2023 will have a very different look to the rankings.  Congratulations to Ram for being the number 1 ranked player at the end of the season and there will be a small awards ceremony at the Christmas do on Monday 19th at Tooting, to recognise certain achievements. 

And, for those who were wondering, the rankings are a bit like snooker, or tennis, etc.  It is NOT reset.  It'll remain as they are, and those playing in 2023 will simply pick up from where they left off, but if you played in 2022, but not in 2023, then you will not show up in 2023 rankings.  What will make next season interesting is that there will be the feature to show your improvements on 2022.  Also, we are still toying with the idea of recording Break and Runs and/or Table Runs, but it will depend on whether players can record these accurately or not.

Also, don't forget, all welcome to the Christmas Do next Monday 19th December.  There'll be the awards ceremony, there'll be really bad Christmas jumpers, mini tournaments such as speed pool, and a chance to get together before the Christmas break.  Hope to see you all there.

And finally, a massive thanks to Ciprian and Andrew for making 2022 a really good year for us pool players at Tooting.  Please appreciate what they do for us, as there isn't anything like this for pool players in the area, on such a regular and consistent basis.  They give up so much time to make this happen, and get very little thanks back.

Here's the final player rankings: