John Dryden once wrote that “great wits are sure to madness near allied”, and those who concur with the 17th-century poet’s view that the line between genius and insanity is indeed blurred have walking, talking, lightning-fast potting confirmation in Ronnie O’Sullivan.

Concluding a weekend of brilliance in which he underlined his status as the sport’s best, O’Sullivan beat Stephen Maguire 10-2 in the final of the Maplin UK Championship at the Telford International Centre in Shropshire last night.

O’Sullivan collected £100,000 and, thanks to constructing a 147 break in the deciding frame of his dramatic 9-8 semi-final win over Mark Selby on Saturday, also earned a £30,000 bonus. Having won the Premier League two weeks ago, his prize- money for December stands at £213,000.

With 19 world-ranking tournament wins, four of which have been recorded at the UK Championship, O’Sullivan is now alone in third on the all-time list, targeting Steve Davis (28) and Stephen Hendry, who has had 36 successes. “It’s been a long time and I never expected to win by that margin. Of all the young players coming through Stephen is the real deal,” O’Sullivan, who had not prevailed in a ranking event since the Irish Masters in March 2005, said.

O’Sullivan set the championship abuzz with his stylish display against Selby. The player who always possesses the snooker X factor, trailed 4-1, 6-3 and 7-5, but displaying unusually steadfast discipline he fought back. He compiled a maximum break when it mattered most, a special achievement upgraded to extraordinary by the pressurised circumstances.

It was O’Sullivan’s second in as many tournaments — he also found break-building perfection in the Northern Ireland Trophy — and his eighth 147 in professional competition, equalling the record held by Hendry.

Sleep did not blunt his excellence and yesterday, fully expecting a thorough examination, O’Sullivan put the outcome beyond doubt by completing an 8-0 first-session whitewash before wasting little time in winning the UK Championship for the first time since he drubbed Ken Doherty 10-1 in a similarly one-sided final in 2001.

Yet it was the bizarre manner in which O’Sullivan gathered his thoughts for the crunch against Selby that spoke loudest about this highly strung maestro. In danger of surrendering concentration, as he so often does, O’Sullivan resorted to that time-honoured method of counting dots on a spoon.

Sports psychologists will be raiding the cutlery en masse after O’Sullivan, on the brink of self-destructive implosion against a purposeful, determined and, more pertinently, methodical opponent, decided to focus his attention on the utensil.

“My head was going, so I had to find a way to keep with it,” he said. “They won’t let me put a towel over my head any more so when Mark was at the table I picked up the spoon. If I lost count of the dots, I just started all over again. My thanks go to the spoon.

“I’ve cheated in some respects. We played 16 poor frames but now everybody will remember the maximum and nothing else,” the notoriously self-critical O’Sullivan added. “It was all right I suppose, but I’d rather have played a solid game and won 9-3 with no unforced errors.”

However, a run of 126 and eight more half-century breaks in a sustained burst against Maguire delighted O’Sullivan, who will now enter 2008 back at the top of the provisional world-ranking list, replacing Shaun Murphy.

“I played well. I won some frames by getting in first and others by capitalising on Stephen’s mistakes,” O’Sullivan said. “He must have sensed that I was cueing well and that intensifies pressure. My game is always about momentum and rhythm. It’s like the steps of a dance and today I didn’t really put a foot wrong. It’s educated attack, care with flair and I’m instinctively aware of where my game stands.

“This is very satisfying because I’ve always rated Stephen very highly.”

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