‘Also-rans’ cause carnage carving up the field

It’s actually very fitting that what you will read hereafter is being produced so close to St Stephen’s (Boxing) Day. For the day after Christmas itself was the occasion on which Gavin Sheehan cajoled a truly rousing rally out of Hewick which nabbed the King George in most unlikely fashion for ‘Shark’ Hanlon’s (temporarily Tara Lee Cogan’s) stable star.

Maybe it’s a Christmas thing. Just think of Paul Carberry’s balls-of-steel performance on Harchibald in the Christmas Hurdle at the same venue in 2007. Mowing down – as only Carberry could – Straw Bear and Rooster Booster, all the while looking as if he hadn’t left his armchair at home.

Now, none of the upsets thus far dispensed at the PDC World Darts Championships were that dramatic in its execution, but no less noteworthy all the same. In actual fact, the seeds falling like leaves in October have been commensurate to a who’s who of darting Galacticos. Michael Smith, Gary Anderson, Ray Van Barneveld, James Wade and Ross Smith. There has probably been and will probably be more.

However, while there might be a perhaps natural tendency to assume those who have bitten the dust have underperformed to some degree, with the notable exception of Gary Anderson, that simply hasn’t been the case. Rather, players such as Kevin Doets – who most notably defenestrated Smith – and Jeffrey De Graaf (who took out Anderson) and Callan Rydz (Martin Schindler) and Ian White (Ritchie Edhouse) and Paolo Nebrida (Ross Smith) were simply much better than their (in some cases much) more vaunted opponents on the occasions in question.

Mind you, with so many big names already out of the equation, where normally the tournament would become automatically more open. Except in the current climate within the sport would suggest that even with all the big noises muted for now, perceived wisdom seems to be that the two Lukes – Humphries and Littler – will duke it out for the Sid Waddell Trophy.

Such an appraisal would be entirely easily understood, but it would highly foolish to rule out a certain Green Machine.