Greatest Genius v Greatest Ever

I've made the point before, but for me, this article sums up why the Ronnie and Hendry debate is a bit of irrelevance. They are both great, but great in different ways. Hendry had more consitency, mental strength, ability to overcome obstacles then Ronnie, in my eyes. Ronnie didn't have the hunger, or the drive to continually succeed then Hendry did. Can you see prime Hendry letting Ebdon back into a game, just because he got the cue ball cleaned a lot of times? No.

Ronnie on the other hand, has a natural talent that Hendry never had. He doesn't have the mental fortitude to consistantly win world titles. Ronnie has never successfully defended a title. Hendry won multiple world titles and Masters in a row. But on his day, Ronnie is almost unplayable. He can win tournaments with a new cue, and you get the impression that he could go a year without practising and still win a tournament. Hendry probably couldn't have done that.

Greatness is defined in many ways, and these two are great for different reasons.

Snookerfan wins the prize for being the first person to cop on to the entire point of my article

we all coped on to it snookerfan was the first to state the obvious

wildJONESEYE wrote:we all coped on to it snookerfan was the first to state the obvious

agreed

If it's so bucking obvious, why do people still come online and argue about who is greatest?

it happens in all sports but in other sports theres a wider range to chose from in snooker it only comes down to 2 players and thats why Ronnie v Hendry is

SnookerFan wrote:I've made the point before, but for me, this article sums up why the Ronnie and Hendry debate is a bit of irrelevance. They are both great, but great in different ways. Hendry had more consitency, mental strength, ability to overcome obstacles then Ronnie, in my eyes. Ronnie didn't have the hunger, or the drive to continually succeed then Hendry did. Can you see prime Hendry letting Ebdon back into a game, just because he got the cue ball cleaned a lot of times? No.

Ronnie on the other hand, has a natural talent that Hendry never had. He doesn't have the mental fortitude to consistantly win world titles. Ronnie has never successfully defended a title. Hendry won multiple world titles and Masters in a row. But on his day, Ronnie is almost unplayable. He can win tournaments with a new cue, and you get the impression that he could go a year without practising and still win a tournament. Hendry probably couldn't have done that.

Greatness is defined in many ways, and these two are great for different reasons.

Agreed
With a timy correction: Ronnie has defended titles. He is even the last player to have done it when he won the welsh open in 2005. He also defended his China Open title 2000. And of course the PL.

Monique wrote:

SnookerFan wrote:I've made the point before, but for me, this article sums up why the Ronnie and Hendry debate is a bit of irrelevance. They are both great, but great in different ways. Hendry had more consitency, mental strength, ability to overcome obstacles then Ronnie, in my eyes. Ronnie didn't have the hunger, or the drive to continually succeed then Hendry did. Can you see prime Hendry letting Ebdon back into a game, just because he got the cue ball cleaned a lot of times? No.

Ronnie on the other hand, has a natural talent that Hendry never had. He doesn't have the mental fortitude to consistantly win world titles. Ronnie has never successfully defended a title. Hendry won multiple world titles and Masters in a row. But on his day, Ronnie is almost unplayable. He can win tournaments with a new cue, and you get the impression that he could go a year without practising and still win a tournament. Hendry probably couldn't have done that.

Greatness is defined in many ways, and these two are great for different reasons.

Agreed
With a timy correction: Ronnie has defended titles. He is even the last player to have done it when he won the welsh open in 2005. He also defended his China Open title 2000. And of course the PL.

I was counting the PL as an event.

Sorry about the other two, kind of going from memory.

If you noticed ... I counted the 2005 welsh as the last. So I wasn't counting PL neither although make no mistake players value it. Very much so.
Thing is people go repeating "Ronnie never defends his titles... " truth is since 1996/97 season very few people have defended ranking titles: Ronnie (2x), Stephen Hendry (1x), John Higgins (1x)... and I think that's all.

PS: Shaun Murphy defended his Malta Cup title but it wasn't ranking anymore when he won it the second time.

Monique wrote:If you noticed ... I counted the 2005 welsh as the last. So I wasn't counting PL neither although make no mistake players value it. Very much so.
Thing is people go repeating "Ronnie never defends his titles... " truth is since 1996/97 season very few people have defended ranking titles: Ronnie (2x), Stephen Hendry (1x), John Higgins (1x)... and I think that's all.

PS: Shaun Murphy defended his Malta Cup title but it wasn't ranking anymore when he won it the second time.

It wasn't meant as a criticism of Ronnie, far from it. And you're right, I remember a topic on here before highlighting that the fact that he'd never defended a title being a myth.

The point I was making, was that Hendry's greatness was in his continual success, whereby Ronnie's greatneass was in his natural talent. Not making a case for which one of them was the best.

And to that I agree and I know you where not attacking Ronnie. And Hendry continual success stopped in 1996/97, IMO not because he was past it (he was only 27) but because with stronger opposition (ROS, Higgins, Williams +Doherty, Ebdon ...) titles were more shared and successfull defence rarer.

Monique wrote:And to that I agree and I know you where not attacking Ronnie. And Hendry continual success stoped in 1996/97, IMO not because he was past it (he was only 27) but because with stronger opposition (ROS, Higgins, Williams +Doherty, Ebdon ...) titles were more shared and successfull defence rarer.

Valid point. Though Higgins aside, I believe Ronnie has the ability to outplay all of the other players you mentioned, and could mention. He should have successfully defended all the majors at least once, and there's no way he should've gone through such a dry patch of not winning rankers.

When Ronnie said Higgins had underachieved despite what he has won, I feel the same goes for Ronnie. He is that good. And I think he should've got more defences in. Ronnie is clearly a class above everybody else, despite the standard being so very high.