Whether in sport or any other facet of life, everybody has their own individual way of doing things. Salt and vinegar or not on chips, either reading newspapers in ‘hard copy’ form or on some sort of device. Darts is no different to anything else in life within those parametres.
At one end of the scale you have players such as Ricky Evans, Luke Littler and, to a lesser extent Keane Barry and, lately, Michael Van Gerwen, who throw with such fluidity and rapidity that if one was to blink you could miss their turn at the oche. Then, at the other end of street, you’ll find Mensur Suljovic and Krzysztof Ratajski and, for example, Brendan Dolan, whose combined preambles could be marketed as antidotes to insomnia.
Thus, the first session of play at the PDC World Darts Championship post the Christmas break encompassed a cacophony of all of the above as slower, methodical Polish Eagle Ratakski swooped on the larger than life and elitely talented Wesley Plaiseir. In one of the truly great Ally Pally clashes. Mind you, there are plenty of contenders for that category presently.
That plan of action was completely turned on its head in the match which followed as Luke Woodhouse, aka The Shed, visibly sped up his normal modus operandi against the deft, deliberate doings of Goldfinger, Andrew Gilding before it could be legitimately said that Jonny Clayton did as he is seemingly programmed to do.
That is to say, threw quickly, scored heavily and finished with accuracy akin to that of a certain Mr Tell. Which in fairness he had to do as the equally heavy scoring of his Dutch opponent Niels Zonneveld left him very little wriggle room, but The Ferret managed to burrow his way through to the next knockout hurdle.
Then, the evening session was another emotional rollercoaster as, firstly, Mensur Suljovic played brilliantly but was still unable to lay a glove on Luke Littler. Incidentally, it was both telling and pleasing to see the match played and ended in such a great spirit. Frankly, anybody who doesn’t like Mensur Suljovic needs their head examined!
The same could not be said about the grummock James Hurrell. That said, narky though he may be, from the first time this writer spotted him in action – possibly at the Grand Slam Of Darts, it was clear he had plenty of ‘game’.
Mind you, he needed every ounce thereof to sidestep the very popular Stephen Bunting. ‘The Bullet’ was my fancy from a long way out, and, in fairness, it could hardly be said that Bunting did anything wrong, just that the underdog produced arrows above anything he had ever done previously.
The same description can absolutely be appended to Saturday’s outstanding encounter when the hitherto unheralded Swede Andres Harryson upended the ambitions of Ricardo Pietreczko from Germany.