Visitors take advantage to progress to last eight

Paisley and District darts players turned their sights to the Hagg Trophy second round this week, with eight games taking place to decide the quarter-final line-up.

The first match at Keystone saw the home team face The New Saints, who defeated Hagg Bar C a fortnight ago.

The visitors got off to the better start as they rattled off the three doubles matches without reply to lead 3-0.

In the singles games it was much the same story as Keystone lost out in the first two matches, eventually suffering a 5-0 to The New Saints.

Game two was at Midton Bowling Club and pitched The Midton against Flying Horse.

Again it was the visiting team that ended the night victorious with a classy 5-2 win to set up a home tie against The New Saints in two weeks’ time.

Match three saw Tartan Rose host Keystone B. And it was the visiting team who took the advantage in the doubles matches, leading 3-0 at the end of them. In the singles they kept their advantage and took the first game to lead 4-0, before Tartan Rose answered back to take their first game of the night through Kieran Walker.

That only delayed the inevitable as David Rayner ran out a 2-1 winner to claim the victory for Keystone B.

The win for Keystone gives them a trip to Hagg Bar for a quarter-final game against Hagg Bar A, who had a walkover victory over Gryffe Inn (City) who couldn’t raise a team.

Game five was at The Clachan Bar as Clachan Arrows took on near-neighbours Pockets B. It was Pockets that grabbed the initiative, leading 2-1 after the doubles games.

Into the singles games and David Carmichael for Arrows levelled the match with a 2-0 win. Pockets took the lead again through Robert Stevenson with his own 2-0 win, as did Debbie McBride to give their side a 4-2 lead.

Arrows player Paul Hanvidge won his game 2-0 to get the Arrows back on track at 4-3, but a 2-0 victory for George Quigley of Pockets sealed them an exciting 5-3 win.

Match six was at Pockets as Pockets A faced Court Bar and after the doubles the score stood at 2-1 to Pockets A.

Paul Carruthers levelled the match for Court Bar with a 2-0 singles win, before wins for Brian Maley and John McCallum put Pockets A in charge at 4-2.

However, Court Bar would not give up, with wins for Ben Barilli and John Hurrel levelling the match at 4-4 to take it to a last-game decider.

Thomas Park held his nerve to win the game 2-1 and earn Pockets A a very tight 5-4 victory. Pockets B will now face Pockets A, with the match taking place in Court Bar.

Game seven was another at Midton Bowling Club as the Midton team took on The Clachan Bar and it was the home team that sailed through the tie with a 5-0 victory.

The last game was at Arthurlie Inns as they played host to Gryffe Inn A and it was the latter who had a 2-1 advantage at the end of the doubles matches. Kevin Peacock levelled the tie for Arthurlie, before Sam Wright and then Bryan Hannah gave the Gryffe team a 4-2 lead, both with 2-0 wins.

The lead was cut to just one after a 2-0 winning match from Arthurlie’s Mick McDairmid, but Gryffe wouldn’t be denied and Kevin Blaney wrapped up the win for his team with a 2-0 victory to take Gryffe A through with a 5-3 overall win.

They will face Midton Bowling Club in the next round.

There were seven scores of 180 this week, with Arthurlie Inns’Graham Moultrie scoring two. There were two 16 dart legs, coming from Court Bar’s Ben Barilli and Keystone B player George Dickson.

The best finish of the week also came from Keystone B as David Rayner checked out on 120.

Next week the second half of the season gets underway with a revised Second Division fixture list, with four games being played each week.

The pick of the ties looks to be in Division 1 at Pockets where they host The New Saints.