Did you ever look at the betting market for something and consider the odds to be so distorted they could be considered fake?
During the year just ending, for three of their Championship matches, Meath were available at a minimum of 6s in a two horse race. And they ended up defeating Dublin, Kerry and Galway respectively.
Now, obviously, chalking up odds on a darts match is a different thing entirely, but, I don’t care if Paddy Power, David Power, John Boyle, Barry Orr and Fred Done had a conclave to compile the odds, nobody, but nobody saw Ryan Searle beating Martin Schindler 4-0.
Or, for that matter, Damon Heta and his gnarly moustache being similarly thrashed by Rob Cross. But so it was.
However, if you want to talk about the oddities of odds, whoever still had Gary Anderson available at 40/1 for outright success before throw in of his match against Jermaine Wattimena needs their head examined (but thank you)!
There would be a view in certain places that because The Flying Scotsman tends to handpick the events he plays in, that’s reason enough to legislate that there will be an obvious diminishment in the quality of his output. Bull,
Himself and Wattimena produced – up to that point – the most amazing prime viewing in the current incarnation. Indeed, it will quite readily stand comparison with some of the heralded classics to grace the old London venue.
Put simply, the Dutch competitor must still be wondering how he isn’t still on duty at the Alexandra Palace.
Quite simply, Watti, because creating chances is one thing, executing them entirely another.
Thus, even though the pair of them shared 24 maximum strikes between them, it was the wily old Scot, half way through his fifth decade, through his nous at tidying up clutch finishes here, there and everywhere around the board which eventually brought the pendulum back on the side of the back to back winner of a brace of Sid Waddell Trophy battles.
There have been many tremendous darting battles take place at the most iconic venues in the sport. Van Barneveld against Taylor in 2007, Barney v. Van Gerwen, MVG and Michael Smith on the night both of them were on nine dart finishes at one point. Prompting the great and much loved Wayne Mardle to declare that he could no longer “Spake”!
Well now, what transpired towards the end of latest clash between Scotland and the Netherlands on an oche deserves accommodatiom alongside the very best already chronicled.
Consider that Jermaine was 3-1 up in sets and two zip up in the final tract required to take the current European champion through the chaos and deeper into the concluding stages of the darting olympiad.
Moreover, though mention was made a few lines back about Wattimena making chances but not taking them, it wasn’t that any of them were gimmes by any means. Just that, perhaps, Gary’s greater accumulation of experience on the biggest of stages saw him home.
In the evening session, things went very much as would have been expected with victories for Gian Van Veen, Luke Humphries and Michael Van Gerwen against Madars Razma, Gabe Clemens and Arno Merk respectively.
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