Westmeath Doubles / West Coast County Challenge

[Keith_Barbie_Kilduff]

Hi all,

Just a quick writeup of my weekends darts, hope you enjoy the read!

While all the excitement was on Q-School Westmeath Darts was enjoying its most successful weekend of Darts in recent years.

For the first time in 3 years the North Westmeath Darts League the league has been split into 2 divisions, D.1 being made up of 6 teams 8 vs 8 league matches, and D.2 8 teams 6 vs 6.

Friday night the 18th saw both divisions play off for their respective Doubles Titles, D.1 was won by Trevor English and Jimmy Murray from the Bridge House who defeated their team-mates Bobby Hilton and Tommy Hassett 3-0 best of 5 legs 601 was the finals format. This was held in Clarkes Bar, Mullingar where 16 pairs across the 6 teams turned up.

D.2 was the title that was up for grabs in McHughs in Raharney (My Team). We have had a few lads leave the team, due to change of scenery, having kids and emigrating to Oz! Hence why weve dropped in D.2 but still a very competitive league none the less!!

Out of the 8 teams in the league, 12 pairs from 4 teams turned up, so 3 boards were setup and 4 pairs on each board and a round robin format was put in place, each game best of 3 legs, a 2-0 win got you 3 points, a 2-1 the points allocated as the result happened. Then the Top 2 teams in group went through where the best 2 Teams from the 6 with the most points went through to the semis and the other 4 played off in a 1/4 final of sort! Hope that makes sense?!

Myself and my partner Peter Rogers went through from our group in second place having won 2 games 2-0 and lost the other 2-0, so we went straight into the 1/4 against Ollie McNamee and Kevin Dunleavy, who play for The Crossbar (Undefeated in the league up to this point!) We found ourselves 200 odd ahead in the first leg but struggled to kill it off until Peter knocked in a dodgy D1 but they all count! In the second we again found ourselves about 100 ahead and I duly took out 57 to take us into the semi final. The second leg was a 20 dart 601 which isnt half bad in doubles!!

In the semi final we were drawn again another pair from the Crossbar, Sean Ward and Willo McLoughlin, I felt going into this that we could take them handy and we duly did, they never scored heavy enough and we cruised into the final 2-0.

The final was the best of 5 legs 601, and we were up against James "Boiler" Boylan (Former Westmeath County player) and Declan Ward who himself is a very good player. They were also from the Crossbar and 2 of the best throwers in our league. Peter himself has played for Westmeath so a good final was surely to come.

And it didnt disappoint, we threw away the 1st leg with the throw having been 150 ahead, myself guilty of 6 missed doubles, however we broke back in the second with a 25 darter on D12. 3rd leg was a very nervy affair and Peter managed to keep his cool on D1 to put us in front again. In the 4th we struck gold on the 60 and from 504 I hit 2 140s sandwiched inbetween a 85 and 59 form Peter to leave 80 but ironically I didnt get a shot at 80 as Declan took out his own 80 to level the match at 2-2. The 5th and final leg was a bag of pure tension from all 4 of us until at 374 Peter decided to switch to 19s, hit a 133 backed by a 140 from myself to leave 101, Peter hit 59 and I took out 42 (10, 16, D8) to take the title infront of my new team which meant so much to me, hopefully now we can push on as a team and make the end of season Top 4 Play-offs.

Come Sunday Westmeath County Team travelled down to Longford for the Westcoast Challenge, After defeating Longford (B) 10-2, they defeated the All-Ireland champions of the last few years Donegal 7-5 in what was a huge upset. They finished off their group stage by drawing 6-6 with Galway and were through to the semis.

What happened after was something unreal, Donegal pulled out as it was getting late and perhaps another reason that I wasnt sure off, (nearly 12.30 at this stage) and the WCoast title was shared between Westmeath/Mayo/Roscommon.

It wasnt the only thing that was unreal in a bad way, as the YOUTHS semis wasnt started until 1AM! Shocking stuff really, lads need to have a look at themselves after that show.

Other than that it was a fantastic weekend overall for all involved in Westmeath, and on another note well done to Daryl Gurney and Campbell Jackson for earning their PDC Tourcards at Q-School, best of luck to them!

I hope that youve enjoyed this read, and I know I said this last time but I will start posting more, its in my New Years Resolution ha!

If any are interested in the Westmeath League you can visit our new website, any pointers on improvements would be great also.

https://sites.google.com/site/westmeathdarts/home is the Link and again I hope youve enjoyed this read!

Take care all, and be safe!

Barbie