Coulsden's Karl Maflin believes he can overcome his poor start to his 2018/19 snooker season, writes Ziad Chaudry.

The 35-year-old has so far won five matches this season with his best run recently was a second round appearance at Paul Hunter Classic in Fürth, Germany.

And at BetVictor English Open last week at K2 Centre, Crawley, Maflin lost in the opening round to the formidable Ronnie O'Sullivan by 4 frames to 1.

Maflin, who represents internationally for Norway due to taking his wife's nationality fellow snooker player Anita Rizzuti, gave an honest assessment to his early season: "The season's gone quite poorly to be honest so far," he admits. "I've haven't been putting the work in properly and been the wrong things.

"But the last week I've really knuckled down and that's what I will continue doing now until Christmas. That's going to be me now for the next two months just Snooker, snooker, snooker.

"Let's see if that can turn my season round which I can if I put the work in."

And Maflin, who practises at Frames Academy & Sports Bar in Coulsden alongside fellow professionals Marco Fu, Jimmy White, Jimmy Robertson and Switzerland's Alex Ursenbacher, will be looking to improve his current world ranking of 50 before the first major of the snooker calendar Betway UK Championship towards the end of next month in York.

"My ranking is ok but I should be a lot higher than that," he continued. "But we'll see how it goes. I'm giving it a good two or three months work out now and hopefully I can have a big run in the UK's, that's the next big one over here."

Maflin is also targeting a return to the big World Championships stage at The Crucible, Sheffield where in 2015 he lost in a first round final frame decider against current world number one Leicester's Mark Selby.

"Sometimes it's just mind work," Maflin added. "You just have to block everything out and just concentrate on what you're doing. If you miss an easy ball then you miss an easy ball. It's not the end of the world, just get on with it. That's what the top players do. You don't see them running after they missed a ball, they just sit down and wait for the next chance, I've been around long enough to know that myself."

Maflin will be in Daqing, China this Sunday (October 28) where he will play Ali Carter in the first round of OPPO International Championship