Neil Robertson on Crucible pain, Ronnie O'Sullivan pressure and new plan for next season

05/21/2024 05:14 AM

Neil Robertson had an unexpected end to last season, covering the World Championship for the BBC rather than playing at the Crucible, but after ‘pain and embarrassment’ he is working hard to put things right on the table.

The Thunder from Down Under failing to qualify for the Crucible was one of the surprises of the season, as a really poor season saw him slip out of the world’s top 16 and then defeat to Jamie Jones in the final round of qualifying ended his World Championship incredibly early.

Rather than sit at home and lick his wounds, the 42-year-old accepted the BBC’s offer to work as a pundit and commentator on the event, which he found pretty unpleasant at first, but ended up really enjoying.

‘When they asked me to bring my cue to do some demonstration I thought, “I’m going to look like an absolute idiot bringing my cue down to the Crucible and I’m not even in the tournament. Oh my god, this is embarrassing”!’ Robertson told Metro.

‘It was quite painful being there for the first time without playing, but it was also very good to do that because it actually didn’t feel as bad as I thought it was going to. I didn’t feel as stupid as I thought I would.

‘People around the Crucible kept saying, “It’s such a shame you’re not playing, you’re great on the punditry but I never want to hear you again!” They wanted to see me on the table, which was really nice to hear from a lot of people, I didn’t expect that.

‘It’s not something I plan on doing at major events any time soon because that would mean I’m not playing, but I did really enjoy it.

‘Doing the punditry stuff in the studio was easy, just reflecting on the frame, but the commentary was different. John Parrott was fantastic with me, I was just learning from him on when to talk.

‘Sometimes you want to talk about something for a minute, but realistically you’ve actually got about 20 seconds to get your point across. So it’s short paragraphs and then leave it, you don’t keep talking. But it was brilliant, I learned quite a bit watching how people go about certain shots and really enjoyed it.’

Robertson was thrown in at the deep end as he was commentating on a remarkable moment during Ronnie O’Sullivan’s quarter-final defeat to Stuart Bingham.

The Rocket chose not to pot a red which was not on until he asked for the black to be re-spotted, which Robertson hailed as the ‘greatest bit of sportsmanship’ he has seen.

The incident took a slightly different turn when O’Sullivan was interviewed after the session and said he felt referees have ‘got it in for him’ and he just wanted to prove that Desislava Bozhilova ‘got it wrong’.

Looking back on the Crucible drama, Robertson said: ‘I said it was such great sportsmanship. He 100 per cent could pot the red. I could see where he was coming from because he didn’t want to gain an advantage on Stu.

‘The difference between being able to pot it comfortably and having to play safe was literally a millimetre. I think Desislava did a perfect job in that scenario. Then Ronnie played safe, which was great.

‘Then Eurosport stuffed a mic in front of him straight out of the session and he just went off on one didn’t he?

‘I don’t know why he’s done it. I understand Eurosport, it’s good journalism from them, but I don’t know why he got involved. I wasn’t a fan of those post-session interviews either, I wouldn’t have done them, not a chance.’

The Australian reckons O’Sullivan was feeling the pressure of having an eighth world title in his sights, further illustrated by another incident with the referee over an open door later in the game.

‘Then there was what happened at 10-10 with the door and the crowd,’ said Robertson. ‘I think that was the title. Judd [Trump] went out earlier that day and I think he felt that realistically if he got through Stuart then he would have comfortably won it. Maybe it was just that, the eighth title on the line in that mini-session.

‘There’s been a couple of moments in the Worlds that it’s happened to him. You’ve seen it with [Peter] Ebdon in 2005. It can happen.’

As O’Sullivan and Trump exited Sheffield, Kyren Wilson went on to lift the trophy and Robertson has nothing but praise for the Warrior.

‘It was a crazy tournament, nobody would have predicted those four semi-finalists, but good on Kyren for standing up,’ he said. ‘It was all up for grabs and Kyren was the one that passed the test and lasted the longest, so hats off to him.’

It seems very strange to see Robertson start next season at number 28 in the world rankings, but he is doing everything he can to improve that situation, learning from the mistakes of the last two years.

‘I did a couple of exhibitions last weekend which went really well, they were good, then I was practicing all week, so there’s no time off for me, no summer off, it’s full steam ahead,’ he said.

‘I’m not missing anything this season. Don’t pencil me in for the Shoot Out just yet, but I don’t plan on missing any more tournaments because of yard cricket injuries or cues being lost or any sort of nonsense. I’ll be playing in everything this year.

‘I worked it out, including the ITV series because I’m usually in that, the last two seasons I’ve missed 13 tournaments and you just can’t do that.

‘Some were through illness and injury, some choosing not to enter, one was forgetting to enter the British Open, then some were not qualifying. You look at the amount of points you lose from that, I’m not doing it again. I’m going to play in absolutely everything this year, starting with the Championship League.’

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