Super weekend of darts
THE Woodpecker pub in Ashford hosted its second annual christmas classic darts weekend. Some of the countries finest players took to Ashford for a superb weekend of top quality darts.
The doubles tournament on saturday was a taste of things to come with Waterford and Kilkenny men Mark Fehily and Keith Geraghty taking an excellent final defeating young sensation Dean Finn and Killian Heffernan in a gripping final. Wicklow’s Paddy Byrne and Eamon Doyle unfortunate to come up short in the semi finals.
Sunday’s all day event was made up of 32 players. They were divided into eight groups of 4. Quality young players meeting grizzled veterans. One of Wicklow’s future stars Evan Byrne was impressive in what was the group of death. As the tournament progressed five local players advanced from their groups. Paddy Byrne , Martin Fortune, David Peters, John Quinn and Mick Lott all advanced to the round of 16 with Quinn and Fortune going a step further into the quarter finals , the best of the home brigade.
However the semi finals saw two top notch matches.
On board one Dean Finn took on Mick Meaney with Meaney’s experience seen him home after a titanic tussle.
On board two Mark Fehily who won the previous nights doubles just been edged out by PDC world championships bound Mick Mcgowan.
The final between two of ireland’s finest was a back and forth encounter. Meaney took the first set after Mcgowan missed three doubles for the set. Mcgowan upped his game in the second set to take it and flew out of the traps in the third with a few maximum 180s and an impressive 12 dart finish however Meaney dug deep to steal it and take a deserved lead.
However double trouble for Meaney from then on saw Mcgowan rattle off six legs on the bounce to take the Carling title three sets to two in a highly entertaining finale.
Well done to Alan and Nikki Dignam for their sponsorship of the event together with Carling beer especially their area representative Robbie Doyle also the committee would like to thank Mick Lott and his team Stacey Hollingsworth and Paddy Byrne for their hard work in running another successful weekend.