First things first – God bless Sky+ and Series Link. It wasn’t realised the afternoon sessions at the PDC World Darts Championship were starting straight away. So it was a nice surprise to be able catch up on the early action at the Alexandrs Palace.
Even more so what it was noticed Ireland’s Steve Lennon was up in the day’s curtain raiser. The Carlow player has been knocking on the door in terms of making a big breakthrough in a televised event. His composed, professional defenestration of Madars Razma certainly bolstered such inclinations.
Following that, there was what must be counted as a turn up when the darting farmer Scott Mitchell was whitewashed by yet another Dutch darting dynamo, Chris Landma.
The penultimate fixture of the first afternoon session exhibited two exponents of the tungsten throwing to this corner, Chas Barestow and John Norman Jnr of Canada. Naturally, being novices at the most iconic venue in the sport, nerves were a significant factor throughout but in the end it was the man for whom it was a home fixture coped better with the occasion who won out.
What followed was the highlight of the afternoon session as Derry’s Daryl Gurney came through a brilliant encounter against Ricky Evans. It’s often entertaining in itself and that was definitely the case in the early session’s closing clash.
Rapid is one thing Gurney is not but after the quick-firing Evans had initially kept his brilliant form of the previous night going, Gurney methodically and skilfully wore down the brilliant tangarine thrower.
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It was a case of ‘Same again please’ at the beginning of the evening session with Willie O’Connor bringing the curtain up on the evening’s play against Danny Lauby of the United States. This time last year another Danny, Baggish, did the stars and stripes proud and though his fellow American ultimately succumbed to the greater experience of the man from Cappamore. Not before Lauby had worked his way back into the contest and actually looked the more likely victor for quite a while.
Following the Munster man’s battling effort, there then followed two surprisingly one sided affairs as firstly Ryan Meikle overcame a plucky challenge presented by 16-year-old German Fabian Schmutzler and then Ron Muelenkamp had things much easier than would’ve been anticipated against Lisa Ashton. Two things to be gleaned from those two encounters – Schmutzler is the real deal and Lisa Ashton will probably never play as badly again.
During commentary it was mentioned that there were huge crowds expected to be tuned in from Germany and very quickly it became clear to see why. The prodigiously talented teenager only entered the qualifiers as a means of picking up more experience and actually ended up winning two of the events. Though vanquished on this occasion he will surely be back.
Similar comments can also be attributed to Adrian Lewis. Somewhat unbelievably, in the wake of last night’s reversal against Gary Anderson, ‘Jackpot’ has now dropped out of the top 32 in the current world rankings in his sport. However, he is definitely worthy and on latest capable of being much higher than that.
As for Gary Anderson, the twice former Champion said after his win that he had “No great expectations” coming into this year’s tournament. Well this writer has for you sir, keep flying, Scotsman!