When the scoreboards at Belfast's Waterfront Hall stopped working on Sunday morning delaying the opening session of the Northern Ireland Open, it seemed fitting.
The only World Snooker Tour (WST) tour event on the island of Ireland had been beset with withdrawals in the build-up. Often a tournament might miss one big star, but when four players who won 16 of the World Championships played since 1998 did not make the trip to Belfast this week, it was clearly a significant blow to the event.
The context is key here though. China is a massive market for snooker and last month saw a return to events in the Far East for the first time since 2019 as the country opened up again after Covid.
The Shanghai Masters was followed by two events in the UK, before the players returned to China to play at the Wuhan Open earlier this month.
That is where the Northern Ireland Open came into the equation.
It started with a planned exhibition event in China which was also due to take place this week. The rumoured money on offer in Macau meant that some big names had decided to stay on there, rather than returning to play in Belfast.
Disappointment for Irish snooker fans, but that wasn't the end of it. WST threatened disciplinary action against the players and eventually the Macau exhibition was moved to December, but the damage had already been done.
World Champion Luca Brecel pulled out of Belfast, alongside four-time Crucible kings John Higgins and Mark Selby. None of them were readmitted when the Macau exhibition was moved.
This was compounded at the end of the week by Ronnie O'Sullivan's decision to skip the tournament, the seven-time world champion citing "medical reasons" for his decision not to travel across the Irish Sea.
All told it meant that some of the sport's biggest stars would be absent from the Waterfront Hall.
Defending champion Mark Allen was asked about the situation, but he was circumspect in his response.
"What I will say is that the tournament has survived other years where players haven't come," he said.
"I understand why there's been a big deal made of it this but I can't say anything for legal reasons."
Pushed on the subject, he added: "You're pulling on a thread that I've got so many answers for but I'd rather say nothing."
Eventually Allen apologised over controversial comments he had made in the UK press but the idea of a "legal" issue standing in the way of the hometown hero being able to speak gave a sense of the seriousness of the issue at hand.
More: Bustle in Belfast suggests time is right for Irish Masters revival
What of the other players who were willing to open up to RTÉ Sport?
Neil Robertson, the 2010 world champion, gave more detail about why there had been such a split between the leading players and the tournament organisers before the event.
"What I would have liked to see happen was that the players be allowed to enter this [Macau event] which they weren't," he told RTÉ Sport.
"I know that a couple of players wrote written withdrawals for this event [Northern Ireland Open] - World Snooker kept them in the event to convince them to play in it.
"That's not acceptable, and I know that for a fact."
Further though, he suggested that once the Macau event was moved to December, some players attempted to re-enter the Northern Ireland Open but they were denied by WST.
"I believe Macau wasn't televised or streamed. Those players aren't here anyway, so it didn't make sense to not allow them to do Macau but to not allow them to re-enter this event - that doesn't make sense."
World Snooker dispute this, and a spokesperson told RTÉ that the reason the players weren't allowed to be readmitted was that the entry deadline had passed.
"It would not have been possible to allow the players to re-enter the Northern Ireland Open once they had withdrawn after the entry deadline," they said.
"We believe we acted fairly throughout this situation."
On the suggestion that players were denied the right to withdraw initially in order to convince them to play in Belfast, the spokesperson added: "When players ask to withdraw from an event after the entry deadline, we always contact them to discuss their reasons.
"In this case, following discussion, the five players decided to remain in the Northern Ireland Open while there was further discussion on the Macau event. The players then later withdrew from the Northern Ireland Open, before the draw was made, which they were entitled to do."
While WST have to balance the potential damage that could be done if players felt that they could regularly pull out of tour events without consequences, in order to play lucrative exhibition matches, it's clear that something will have to give in the future in order to avoid the situation that happened in Belfast this week repeating itself.
"We're going back to the players being able to command really good appearance fees in these [exhibition] events," Robertson continued.
"We get paid more for appearing in those for a few days than what the winner would get here. So you could understand players making that decision. It was unfortunate the situation that happened and I totally get the players' point of view where they chose not to enter this event to do something else. Many other sports allow this to happen.
"World Snooker have got a pretty tight grip on things with control of the players. That's what it is in the current players' contract. No one is doing anything in a malicious way.
"The relationship with players and World Snooker needs a massive amount of improvement. World Snooker did amazingly well during Covid, absolutely unbelievable what they did for the players.
"The world has moved on, things have opened up, there's many commercial opportunities for players. They can go back to earning really good money off the table and World Snooker need to meet halfway in allowing players to do that."
The Australian's solution?
"Play the China tournaments back to back," he says.
"I know it's seen as sloppy seconds for the Chinese events but I'm sorry, player welfare is the most important thing.
"China was on this season and it's great we're back there. For next season the calendar has got to change. Player welfare has to be taken into account.
"Climate change, global warming; World Snooker don't want to be seen to be seen as forcing players here and there when we can stay in China. We don't have to take all these flights. Other sports - Formula One - they're very focused on reducing the carbon footprint.
"A lot has got to happen and I'm sure over the next few months player will get together."
Judd Trump is the undoubted form player in the world right now, having won back-to-back titles in the run up to Belfast at the English and Wuhan Opens.
For him, the future of the game should involve players having the freedom to pick and choose events without the threat of disciplinary action.
"The fans always want to see the best players but in any other sport there's always going to be tournaments where the top players are missing," he points out.
"For me this wouldn't be the one to miss because of the arena. This is top three or four of atmospheres to be involved with. It wasn't purposely that it was this event [that players missed], it was just bad timing. In the future all the top players will be back here."
Trump wants to see even more tournaments on the calendar, but with the power tilted towards the players rather than the organisers.
"It'd be nice to get to a point where there's more tournaments, and more going on, but you don't have to play in the events," he added.
"The lower-ranked players would love to be able to play every single week and give them a chance to earn money. The top players don't have to play. At the moment it's a little bit in between where you feel like you have to be involved. It's not that there's not enough but there's not too many either so you feel like you have to [play in them all].
"You just need that little bit of extra organisation just to give you one or two days off in between events. Start events on a Tuesday instead of a Monday.
"At the moment it's not rewarding if you're winning events. You're being punished because it's hard to keep up without that rest."
World Snooker Tour chairman Steve Dawson told RTÉ Sport, in response to some of the criticisms, that it supports the right of players to make money from wherever they can.
But Dawson pointed out that scheduling exhibition matches where there are already WST events on the calendar was not a solution to the impasse.
"We've had a lot of comments from a few of the top-ranked players in recent weeks," he said.
"The gist of these comments is that certain players want the chance to make extra money from exhibition matches in China. We have no issue with that.
"We simply ask that the promoters of those events have the common sense to schedule their exhibition matches at times that don't clash with our tournaments. The players should understand that as a perfectly reasonable requirement on our part.
"It is great that our sport creates opportunities for a limited number of players to earn outside of the tour; but it's also important to remember that those players become major stars in the first place through their success on our tour.
"As with every international sport, we are always looking to develop the tour. Players can be confident that we prioritise their welfare when we put the calendar together, balancing travel with opportunities to earn. This is something we continually look to improve, in collaboration with our event partners and the WPBSA and the WPBSA Players’ Board."
There was a time in the early years of the century when there were only six ranking events on the tour.
With 17 ranking tournaments being played this season, and another six non-ranking or invitational tournaments for the elite players, it's clear that the tour has progressed since then.
With the potential for more events to come next season, players have never had a better spread of tournaments around Europe and Asia. The game is becoming an ever more attractive proposition for those who can reach the elite levels.
It seems likely that the issues around the calendar will be ironed out before that start of next season, which will be of huge benefit to all involved.
But it will come too late for, and be of little consolation to, Irish snooker fans who have been caught in the crossfire this week.
