11-year-old with seven tons ‘could do better’ (From This is Hampshire)

11-year-old with seven tons ‘could do better’

6:00am Saturday 16th January 2010

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SHANE Castle is halfway through his eight-year plan to become a professional snooker player.

On Thursday, the Marchwood wonderkid reaches the ripe old age of 12.

World Snooker coach Dave Mumford started working with Castle in January 2006.

Since then the youngster has made seven centuries in tournament play, won two England caps, been crowned Pontin’s under-12 champion two years running and is currently 31st on the EASB Premier Junior Tour for England’s best 48 under-21s.

In four years, he will turn 16 - the minimum age a player can qualify for the professional circuit.

Delivering his half-term report, Mumford awarded Castle an “A minus, could do better”.

Mumford said: “His cute little stage is coming to an end where people are just impressed with him for being good and being a young kid. The next stage in his development is to become an outstanding player over the next couple of years through hard work and effort.

“You hear of lots of people that are fantastic at 14 and then haven’t kicked on. The difficulty for Shane is he’s got to be that good, then maintain it and then get better. That’s going to be hard. But that’s the task.

“Just before Christmas, he actually felt like a proper player and that was a special moment for both of us. He was in a zone where he was genuinely believing that all of his hard work was beginning to pay off.

“And that actually was the key. It wasn’t anything I’d done; it wasn’t anything technical; it was just the fact he was putting in the effort away from me.

“I try and make our sessions as enjoyable for him as possible. But what he’s got to now do is put in those four hours a day, every day.”

Watch this space!