Bet Victor World Matchplay 3
Sunday in Blackpool!
Well what a Sunday that was in Blackpool! It all started off like a Sunday should, nice and sedately. Chizzy wrapping up an easy win against Dean Winstanley and The Prince of Wales winning easily against a lacklustre Brendan Dolan (making our over 16.5 legs prediction look ridiculous!).The Thorn and Nico then livened things up with a feisty encounter and some "classic" Nicholson antics throw in to keep the Matchplay crowd entertained. The Hammer then completed a routine victory over Wayne Jones.
But Sundays in Blackpool don't stay sedate for long, the evening session had virtually all the talking points including Michael Smith, who is the latest player to be dubbed a future World Champion. There is enough pressure on young dart players without attaching poorly thought out and statistically unlikely labels on them. That said, Smith produced a very mature performance against Justin Pipe.
Bully Boy looked rock solid on his own throw and it was just a matter of time before he would get the chance to break. His chance came at 8/8, a 15 darter and 65 checkout effectively won him the game. Taylor next for Smith, that is one to look forward to.
Next up was WesWez and Ronnie Baxter! What a game. The standard at times was woeful. Definitely one for the PDC fanatics who truly believe every PDC game ends with a 100 average to be reminded of when they crawl out from wherever they crawl out from when there is a game of similar standard being played out under a different darts organisation's banner!
The low 80 average for both sums up the majority of the match. Wes looked close to tears and according to my pal Krispy form Darts Beers and Cheers on Twitter, Wesley considered, for a fleeting moment exiting the stage and handing victory to Ronnie. Newton was 8:4 down, playing poorly and his body language screamed "get me out of here"!
Then we witnessed a darting miracle. Newton came charging back to take the game to extra time. Then the man that couldn't hit a thing 20 minutes earlier calmly took out 144 to win the game 11-9-extraordinary!
Just as you thought things couldn't get any better Taylor turns up for his walk on with a baseball cap on! Mind you The Power has never been afraid of peaking early! Taylor's performance certainly made everyone predicting he will not be able to retain his Matchplay title (yes that's us too) sit up and take note.
Then in the final game we had an incident even more bizarre than Phil and his baseball cap. In the Barney v Van der Voort match, Vincent was put off his attempt at a double by a shout out from the crowd. It was 4:0 at the time but it certainly looked as though Barney then deliberately missed his three darts at the double to give Vincent another chance. -br/> Mardle alluded to this in the commentary box-he said that he felt "friendship had got in the way of Barney winning that leg". An interesting one that, we'll put it down as a Di Canio style piece of sportsmanship but in these days of match fixing rife in so many sports possibly not a course of action to be repeated even if it was demonstrating a tremendous sense of fair play.
Tonight's Matches
Evening Session (7pm-11pm) First Round
Peter Wright v Stephen Bunting
Mervyn King v Kim Huybrechts
Adrian Lewis v Andrew Gilding
Gary Anderson v Jamie Caven
The first game of the night should be a cracker, match of the round material!
PG's Tips
Our 180's double came in yesterday so why change a winning formula:
Bunty can hit 180's for fun and Snakebite has his moments. Over 8.5 at evens in what should be a tight game is tempting. Double that with Huybrechts to score more than Merv for a tad over 6/4 at Boyles.