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*Official* Darts Thread

King Pietersen

International Captain
Flicked through 7 pages of this section, and couldn't find a Darts thread, so thought I'd make one, given the World Championship starts tonight. Personally love a bit of Darts, probably helped by the fact that my 2nd cousin is former World Number One Peter 'One Dart' Manley, but I genuinely enjoy watching it. The World Championships is always a great event to watch, and we're sure to get some classic matches.

Tonight's action's been good. Mardle looked completely out of sorts against the German champion Artut. When Mardle's on form he's a top class player, but when it goes wrong for him it really goes wrong. Today's performance was almost the Darting equivalent of Scott Boswell, he was abysmal.

Really enjoyed the Prelim match between Per Laursen and Christian Perez as well. Perez looked very impressive, his 12 darter to finish the match was brilliant. Be interesting to see how he gets on against Robert Thornton later this evening.

Taylor should easily win his game against Monk tonight. He's in ridiculous form, and really is the Sir Donald Bradman of the Darts world. How he didn't get nominated for the Sports Personality of the Year award is beyond me. He's had an incredible year and is one of our finest sportsmen AFAIC. Hate how Darts doesn't get the respect it deserves. The players may not look like athletes, but to make it to the top they need to put in as much work as any other sportsman, and I'd say Taylor puts in more work than the majority of sportsmen. He practises 8 hours a day, which frankly is ridiculous and he really has taken Darts to a standard that players from the Bristow era of smoking and drinking at the oche could never have imagined. Really wish Darts would get more recognition, it's exciting to watch and has come along way with the help of Sky Sports. I hope that in 5 years time it has begun to get real recognition, and Taylor is proclaimed for the sporting legend that he is. Incredible player.

Also, do you see anyone really challenging The Power for the World Title? I see him taking World Championship number 15 with relative ease. I would like to see One Dart give it a good run though, just to make up for his last WC final. I was there that night, and the 7-0 defeat was embarrassing to watch tbh. I did get to meet Helen Chamberlain though, so it wasn't all bad =D Pete has been in pretty rank form though of late, and does seem to be more worried about getting paid for opening bookies and doing exhibitions than winning the World Championships, but you never know.

Edit: Brilliant match between Priestley and McDine here. McDine averaging over 100, having missed alot of early doubles and with an injured knee, amazing stuff. What's more amazing is that Priestley's still in charge of the game, with it even and him having the throw. Hoping for a McDine victory here, he's thrown brilliantly after abit of a slow start. His attack on the 60 has been superb.
 
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King Pietersen

International Captain
Another great night of Darts tonight. Peter pulled off a really good comeback to take out Andy Jenkins, who shouldn't have even have been in the tournament. He punched Terry Jenkins in a tournament a little while back, and is yet to have been punished for it officially. I think they were going to ban him from the competition, but he appealed which delayed the ban. Acted like a dick on the stage as well, waving Pete off the stage after going 2-1 up, delighted to see Pete knock him out and win the last set 3-0.

Adrian Lewis was magnificent as well. Averaged over 120 in the 2nd set, was a brilliant show of attack on the trebles. He peppered the Treble 20 and looked a class act. Lewis's problem has always been his consistency throughout a competition though. He can pull of a performance like this one game, but then look horrible and lose his next one. He's so talented, and has the perfect throwing partner in The Power, and he's a real nice bloke. Hope he goes far in the sport. Hoping that Lewis-Klassen is the future Taylor-Barneveld battle.

Had to :laugh: at the crowd in the 2nd set of the Manley-Jenkins match. Some bloke dressed as a x-mas tree pulled some woman dressed as Santa, which led to the whole crowd turning in her direction and shouting 'Easy, Easy, Easy'. Brilliant. Bet her parents'll be proud.
 

Flyonthewall

U19 Captain
Barney even got a mention in the Sports section of the West Australian today!
Has there been any mention of Whitlock and/or Nicholson so far? Whitlock's been awesome tbh, has a real chance of making the final. I know Nicholson went out first round but he's a noted character also.
 

cpr

International Coach
Too early for the world championships, Darts is exclusively a January 'there's **** all on on a saturday whilst we wait for final score' venture.

Guessing this is the PDC, which is always a couple of weeks before the BDO..... BDO being free to air is the one i've always followed growing up, so seen far more of Barney than the likes of Taylor
 
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cpr

International Coach
Going back to the original post, its a very fair point that Darts players dont get the credit they deserve for the skill and effort needed to become top of the game. It's not shed the 'pub game' that snooker then pool managed to shed (though looking at someone like Andy Fordham, no wonder why). Yet to throw so consitently over a game takes great skill and a hell of a lot of muscle.
 

King Pietersen

International Captain
What a game of Darts. Simon Whitlock vs James Wade is up there with the best games I've ever seen. Whitlock is playing incredibly in this tournament. I spotted him in the 1st round where he averaged 103, and he's proven himself even more taking out James Wade 5-3, averaging 105 in the process. What a performance. Averaged 124 in the 1st Set and didn't average under 100 in any of the 8 sets played. Webster, Baxter, Barneveld, Taylor and Lewis better watch out. The Aussie is on fire! WAG. Ranked 126 in the world atm, but that's sure to change.
 
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cpr

International Coach
Low ranking probably due to only coming to PDC in the last year, has been finalist in BDO World Championship.

Really need to start playing more, had to take my board down in case the landlord had a whinge. Am not home from work in time to play the local pub league matches, which is a shame (though we use the log-end boards, which as you can see are far more difficult to play on)

Not generally a bad player meself, though not as good as my dad was, who although never qualified for any major finals, still blags he has a decent record against one or two of the more obscure professionals out there (amazingly I dont seem to recall any of these matches, only the one where Martin Adams hammered him)
 

Flyonthewall

U19 Captain
Incredible final of the PDC Worlds between Taylor and Brett Lee, sorry, Simon Whitlock. IMO the standard of play provided by these two players and a fair few others proves the ignorance/stupidity of the "darts isn't a sport" argument. The skill and mental strength levels required to throw a 100+ average over 10 sets (around 40 legs) of darts are really very high, I would say.

Out of interest, were any of the Aussies on here following Whitlock's performance tonight, and has he received press coverage at all for his reaching the final?
 

social

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Incredible final of the PDC Worlds between Taylor and Brett Lee, sorry, Simon Whitlock. IMO the standard of play provided by these two players and a fair few others proves the ignorance/stupidity of the "darts isn't a sport" argument. The skill and mental strength levels required to throw a 100+ average over 10 sets (around 40 legs) of darts are really very high, I would say.

Out of interest, were any of the Aussies on here following Whitlock's performance tonight, and has he received press coverage at all for his reaching the final?
Watched it here in Dubai and last few rounds were amazing demonstrations of skill

Also looks like a pretty good night out

Whitlock got a little bit of press in the Oz media but nothing like as much as he deserved - tremendous achievement to make the final in a sport where you'd be struggling to find a dart board in a public place in your home country

BTW, watched a show on Phil Taylor a few years back where he said he was dieting, exercising, etc in an attempt to take his career to a new level.

Obviously, his game his fine but it certainly looks like he's given away everything else :laugh:
 

King Pietersen

International Captain
Nice performance in the tournament from the 2 BDO lads that fairly recently joined the PDC. Webster came 3rd with Whitlock 2nd. Nice work. I'm just hoping Whitlock isn't a 1 tournament wonder, or someone that's only genuinely good for a short period of time like a Colin Lloyd, John Part, Wayne Mardle, Peter Manley, Mark Dubridge, etc etc. If Whitlock can keep playing like he has this week, then he's going to be near the top of the tree in no time. Beating 2 players as good as Wade and Barneveld is seriously impressive.
 

cpr

International Coach
BTW, watched a show on Phil Taylor a few years back where he said he was dieting, exercising, etc in an attempt to take his career to a new level.

Didn't work for Andy Fordham's career. Though probably saved his life so fair trade off
 

Flyonthewall

U19 Captain
Think that after tonight it's time to revive this thread.

All I have to say is...Paul Nicholson WAFG. So chuffed that my favourite player toppled Taylor...couldn't have wished for a better game to go alongside it either. Nicholson's finishing earlier on in the game was astounding.
 

Scaly piscine

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Do wish they'd shut up about how hot it is and the physical demands.

Yes I'm sure it's hot with the lights, been and done that with Countdown. But they're playing darts, they're not that quick and there's a few minutes break every 15 minutes.
 

Scaly piscine

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Underwhelming final, close but pretty poor quality. Last leg summed it up really.

Still don't think many people like King so a popular win.
 

Flyonthewall

U19 Captain
Reckon that it's time to give this thread a bit of a bumping from the doldrums of Page 4. Is anyone else watching the Matchplay final at the moment? It's bucking the trend of recent Taylor vs Van Barneveld matches in that A) It's been very close and exciting and B)Barney hasn't sulked or thrown in the metaphorical towel at any point. Been a terrific match, the standard of finishing in particular has been astoundingly good. Although I am having to listen to it on silent owing to the Taylor-worshipping twaddle that Sid Waddell spouts leg after leg.
 
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