The abolition – officially it may be ‘suspension’ but the masses know what’s at play here – of the pre season competitions in GAA slithered through with barely an eyebrow being raised.
Yet I would suggest the vast majority of counties would have had no objection to their retention. As much as I can’t stand a lot of the dross Mickey Harte spews, the importance he placed on the Dr McKenna Cup always impressed me. Plus, for example, for a county like Longford, winning the O’Byrne was a big deal in its own right, but, more than that, the hope will have been that the bit of silverware may have been a stepping stone to greater things.
The bottom line is that every endeavour – sporting or otherwise – has to have a start point. Whether that be Steve Bruce’s two goals for Manchester United against Sheffield Wednesday during Easter of 1993, Ireland’s victory over New Zealand in rugby at Soldier Field in Chicago or Rory McIlroy’s maiden success at the Wells Fargo Championship way back in 2010.
And so it proved to be for Belgium’s Mike De Decker at the World Darts Grand Prix in Leicester in the week just past. Now, of all the tournaments an arrowsmith could choose to chisel out a breakthrough, I’d venture it would be the last. You see, it’s a unique fixture on the darting calendar due to its format. Owing to to the fact that each leg must be started by hitting a double – the inner ring on the board – as opposed to practically every other event where the tungsten can literally be tossed anywhere on the board to kick off.
Yet it is the case that some players take to the quirky format better than others. Though it’s highly unlikely anyone resembled a duck in water quite as quickly as did De Decker. Overcoming the talented but temperamental Australian Damon Heta in the first round before taking out a very similar character in James Wade. In between those two scalps, though, an even more noteworthy name was checked off to ‘To-Do’ list when the blonde 28-year-old got the better of the great Gary Anderson at the second hurdle.
There have been those who seek to claim that Anderson’s greatness is on the wane. Not only because the Flying Scotsman is my favourite tungsten tosser of the lot, but also owing to the fact that it has been fairly well accepted that the two-time, back-to-back World Champion had been back to something like his best form in recent times.
After overcoming the obstinate Wade and affable Anderson, next on the horizon for De Decker was a ‘local derby’ for him against his former housemate Dimitri Van Den Bergh. The latter being one of the most likable characters on the darting circuit, he has been steadily, if somewhat slowly, ascending the rankings in the sport, which in itself has to have been a great inspiration to the likes of De Decker. A situation not done any harm by the fact that Dancing Dimmy is surely a lot easier to warm to than the obnoxious, tempestuous Kim Huybrechts.
Now, whether the following was down to it being against his compatriot or just a dislike of the format can only amount to speculation, but the usually cheerful and classy Dreammaker was decidedly out of sorts, particularly on starting doubles. In contrast, his compatriot took to what were for him completely new surroundings like a duck to their preferred ambience.
In truth, De Decker was worth every dart of his 5-2 set victory over his fellow countryman. Having used the same number of darts to get in even though his opponent created a full 40 more chances. Also, though it’s routinely, and correctly, pointed out that averages – the average score a player gets from every three darts thrown – are only a guide to what way a match might go, the fact is that De Decker’s average was more than five points ahead of that of the vanquished competitor.
Again, the number of 180s a player hits is just another statistic, doing so, naturally, provides the shortest route to victory. On that score, literally, De Decker held sway 9-7, but perhaps the real telling factor was the reality that, out of 23 finishing chances created, the better known of the two lads from the land of chocolate only converted nine out of a possible 23.
Even allowing for De Decker’s exponential rise as the week went on, over on the other side of the day, Luke Humphries had looked so imperious throughout the same week that one was nearly drawn to feel sorry for whomever ended up trying to rid Cool Hand of the title he won to launch himself into bigtime darts. As a result of the boost which came from same he then went on to win the Sid Waddell Trophy last Christmas.
Yet perhaps it was only natural than when two weighed down truck loads of momentum collided, something had to give. In the end, it would be hard to decipher what it was that split them, but De Decker’s slight edge in the maximum hitting department is as good a stat as any.
Methinks this might be only the first installment of the next great rivalry in darts.
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