the next nine to leave Fagan 10–15 behind at the end of the second day. Higgins won the match 21–13. Entering the 1978 UK Championship as defending champion, Fagan lost the first four frames of his opening match against David Taylor before tying the match at 4–4, eventually losing 7–9. He was also defeated by Taylor in the first round of the 1979 Masters, losing 3–5 after having been 3–2 ahead. From late 1978, following a car accident, Fagan started to experience a psychological block when using the . This version of the "yips" caused him to spend a long time cueing and then usually ; because of this, he would play left-handed rather than using the rest where possible. This problem affected his match against Taylor at the Masters in January 1979. Two months later, he challenged Higgins again for the Irish Professional title. Higgins won the match 21–12, making a break of 124 in 2 minutes and 45 seconds on the final day. Fagan was part of the "rest of the world" team at the 1979 World Challenge Cup, along with Perrie Mans and Jimmy van Rensberg. In their match against the Northern Ireland team, Fagan lost 0–1 to Dennis Taylor on the first day, in a match where Taylor asked him to play again after Fagan had fouled by touching the blue ball with his sleeve whilst using the rest in attempting to hit the yellow ball. Fagan was quoted afterwards as saying "Dennis took advantage of my rest problems but it didn't bother me." On the second day, he beat Jackie Rea 1–0 but then lost 0–3 to Higgins on the second. Northern Ireland won the match 8–7 after having been 2–7 behind. Fagan and his fellow team members also lost 7–8 against the England team. Dennis Taylor also beat Fagan in the quarter-finals of the 1979 UK Championship, 9–6, after Fagan had knocked out Mike Hallett 9–4 and Graham Miles 9–5. In the 1980 World Snooker Championship Fagan lost in his first match, 6–10 to Steve Davis. This was the last time he reached as far as the quarter-final of a major tournament other than the Irish Professional Championship or the 1986 Irish Masters, the latter resulting from a walkover against Kirk Stevens. He lost to Dennis Taylor in a challenge for the Irish Professional Championship in 1981, coming from 0–3 down to lead 5–4