Limerick darts player William O’Connor aiming for a bullseye
More time on the oche will help me hit my target and join the sport’s elite, insists Limerick man William O’Connor
A FEW years ago, William O’Connor travelled with some members of his local league team to a darts tournament in the small village of Newmarket in North Cork. It was around Christmas, so naturally enough, the glitz and razzmatazz from Alexandra Palace was on the television.
He kept quiet about the fact that he had played the likes of Michael van Gerwen and Gary Anderson, although such was his ability at throwing arrows that eyes were soon diverted from the TV screen to what was happening in the packed-out pub.
‘The thing is that we were in this small village in Cork, playing a Christmas singles competition and there were 110 players in this one tiny village. That shows how popular the game is in Ireland. It would surprise you the number of players there are around the country. I’d say everyone knows someone that plays darts,’ he contends.
A native of Cappamore, county Limerick, O’Connor travels to London this week as one of four Irish players participating in this year’s PDC (Professional Darts Corporation) World Championship, which has a prize fund of £2.5 million.
It kicks off on Thursday and most will probably be drawn to it at some point over the festive period.
Ireland’s other participants are Carlow’s Steve Lennon and the northern pair of Daryl Gurney and Brendan Dolan.
Despite a quartet of players in the main draw and Citywest selling out for the World Grand Prix every year, darts still battles against ageold perceptions in this country.
Sport England formally recognised it as a sport a decade and a half ago, but it is still waiting from similar recognition here and, as such, receives no government funding. It feeds into the idea that it’s viewed primarily as a pub game. O’Connor believes it doesn’t help itself sometimes in that regard.
The recent Grand Slam of Darts tournament was overshadowed by controversy when Gary Anderson was accused by an opponent of passing wind during their match, while, in the final itself, Gerwyn Price went over the top in his celebrations of winning throws.
‘When things like that happen, it is no wonder that people just consider darts a game,’ O’Connor says. ‘In sport, there is sportsmanship but what went on between Gary and Price in the final was not sportsmanship.
‘That was gamesmanship, and that is what you would expect in a game. If it wants to be taken seriously as a sport, things like that shouldn’t be allowed to happen.’
O’Connor has shown glimpses of form over the course of the season and made headlines back in September when he dumped Van Gerwen, the greatest player in the game, out of the Dutch Championship, in front of his hometown crowd.
He shrugs when that achievement is brought up. He had beaten the charismatic Dutchman before but annihilating the world number one 6-1 in the Netherlands made people sit up and take notice. ‘But I went out and lost in the next round, so it didn’t matter,’ O’Connor says simply. ‘Look, I suppose it was good for my profile, but I have beaten Michael before, so I didn’t think much of it.’
The 32-year-old, nicknamed ‘The Magpie’, plays Holland’s Yordi Meeuwisse in the first round and goes into the tournament ranked 50th on the PDC Order of Merit. It isn’t bad, but he concedes himself that he would be higher if he could devote more time and energy to something that is only a hobby to him.
A carpenter, he works full-time for Furniture Man in Limerick. ‘In fairness, they have been very good to me.
‘Bernard, my boss, has been the main man in supporting me, but I still need to make a living and I don’t have the time to devote to darts to do that,’ he explains.
While top players like Van Gerwen, Anderson and defending world champion Rob Cross practise between five to seven hours a day, O’Connor doesn’t have that luxury. It truly is a parttime pursuit for him,
‘It is hard to keep at it. I am not nearly as committed to darts as I should be. It is a hobby for me, and a part-time hobby at that. I have a full-time job, a family. It is hard enough with all the travel, away every second week, playing tournaments around the UK and Europe. You are away a lot as it is and my main priority is my family.
‘If I was able to practise a bit more, maybe I would be doing a bit better, but I shouldn’t even be doing as well as I am given how little time I do devote to it,’ O’Connor reckons. ‘I will try to get a couple of hours a night in before heading to London but there are times when I don’t pick up a dart from one end of the week to the other, apart from our darts league here in Limerick on a Monday night.’ He came across the game by chance. When he was 18, he was waiting on the pool table in his local pub when he picked up a set of darts. ‘I just started throwing them at the board and I thought maybe I could be alright at this,’ he recalls. ‘I didn’t expect to get where I am now, to be competing in the World Championship, but I thought it was something that I might be good at. It is like anything. When you start playing, you want to win the local league. Then you want to win the local singles tournament, and then you want to win the county and then the province and All-Ireland. And then you start wanting to go to big tournaments.’ Within five years of taking up darts, O’Connor found himself on the PDC tour which was founded by Barry Hearn back in 1994 as a breakaway from the BDO which audiences would have been familiar with on the BBC. ‘I went into the PDC far too soon. I wasn’t playing the game long enough, just for a few years. But I had won a couple of national singles titles in Ireland and you are always wondering: how can I improve here, how can I get better?
‘But as I wasn’t ready for it, I was constantly chasing and the earlier you went out in tournaments, the more pressure you were under in the next tournament and the further you went from your natural game.
‘But look, things happen for a reason. I don’t regret doing it because I learnt a lot,’ he says. He has proved that this year, especially with the scalp of Van Gerwen. Just two months prior to that, the Dutchman had beaten him in the European Matchplay final.
O’Connor beat Cross, the defending world champion, en route to that final. Cross’s story warmed the cockles at the turn of the year, when the former electrician crushed 16-time champion Phil Taylor in the World Championship final.
‘Rob did incredibly well last year, but he has found it hard to replicate that this year, probably because of the pressures of being world champion.But he would be an inspiration to many in darts, you have to look for inspiration from those who have had success.’
If O’Connor gets over his Dutch opponent in the first round, with the pair clashing for the first time, he will meet 25th seed James Wilson in the next round. But he is not looking any further than that.
‘For me, the aim is just to get over the first round and take it from there.’