JAMIE JONES was in dreamland – just like Crucible fans.
World Championship spectators made the snooze headlines but world No 51 Jones made a splash name for himself by beating eighth seed Shaun Murphy 10-9 in a first-round thriller.
Bogeyman Jones put 2005 champ Murphy’s title dream to bed yet again but some fans at the Sheffield arena perhaps wanted to ask the umpire for a rest..
Two men siting next to each other, and another right below them, slumbered as Murphy lumbered.
Whichever game the tired trio were watching, it was an eventful time at the table.
And it was the second time in six years Murphy – “The Magician” – has been made to vanish at the first stage by the 30-year-old outsider from Neath.
And a bewildered Murphy, 35, was left wondering why Jones fails to pull more rabbits out of the hat at regular tour events.
Murphy said: “I had a chance in the decider – but I missed it and that’s top class sport. Those little errors can come back to haunt you, and they did.
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“I have to give credit to Jamie, it seems when he sets foot in the Crucible there is a weird change in him.
“In his team I would want to work out how he plays like that here, and then repeat it at regular tour events. Because playing like that he should be much higher up the rankings.
“I am just glad I won this tournament when I was young and didn’t understand fear and had no battle scare.
“Because now I am older and more frightened!” Jones, who beat Murphy 10-8 six years ago, now plays Kyren Wilson for a place in the quarter-finals – the stage he reached in 2012.
He said: “I need to prepare every tournament like I do for the World Championship, and I haven’t done that in a lot of my career and gone missing for events.
“I missed the first good chance in the decider and thought ‘Oh no’, and that maybe it was gone – but them he missed straight away. It is the best win of my career, I have never felt pressure like that.
“I think I took being a professional for granted a bit and not dedicating myself to the sport as a job.
I have gone missing, but this season I have treated it properly. It might be paying off now.” Meanwhile Mark Allen waded in to the Crucible football shirt ban row after easing into the second round.
The Masters champion beat debutant Liam Highfield 10-5 to set up a last-16 clash with world No1 Mark Selby’s conqueror Joe Perry.
And Allen pointedly celebrated with super-fan Brian Wright, 48, in the front row – who is not allowed to wear his Coventry City shirts for the first time in 29 years.
World Snooker supremo Barry Hearn insisted last week that he wanted a smarter dress code.
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But Allen blasted: “I went over the Brian at the end and just laughed with him that he didn’t have his football top on today.
“Look, the world has gone nuts that you can’t wear a football top to come and watch snooker.
“It is a ridiculous statement to make to say it is about image.”
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