Hammer shock for Stadium
ON Monday evening in the Widnes & District Darts League, the Jack Wilcox Cup pre-lims were played at the Wellington.
Hammer & Pincers ‘A’ against Halton Stadium ‘A’ was a real David versus Goliath match, with no-one giving the Hammer any hope.
The Hammer & Pincers, who have not won a match in any darts competition, struck gold against a team packed with talent.
The Stadium found themselves a game down as Rob Sutton took the opener. Minutes later the onlookers were stunned as Merv Grady added a second to knock the Stadium ‘A’ out of the competition.
It was no consolation to the Stadium as John Bowles in 19 darts which included a 180 won the final game.
The Mill Brow SC ‘C’ took on the Hammer & Pincers ‘C’.
The Brow proceeded to take all three games and the match through Carl Hackney, Tony Roach and Chris Bright.
Widnes Bowling Club ‘A’ locked horns with the Mill Brow SC ‘B’.
The Brow ‘B’ took the first two games via Dave Powell (17 darts) and Jack Dunn (18 darts) ensuring their progress.
The Bowler’s Scott Byrne (17 darts and 180) took the final game, but it was just a consolation.
The Hammer & Pincers ‘B’ were up against Widnes Bowling Club ‘B’.
The Bowler took all three games with Dave Pickles, Alan Clark and Alex McGill all successful on the oche.
Halton Stadium ‘C’ faced the Mill Brow SC ‘A’. Guaranteeing their progess, the Stadium ‘C’ took the first two games through Neil Ward and T Jackson. Brian Spruce won the final game for the Mill Brow SC ‘A’. ●
Danny Bullock fired them into the lead in the seventh minute and then Stuart Brittle doubled the advantage some five minutes later.
They actually had so many chances that did not get put away that they could easily have been leading by six or seven at the first break but, in the end, had to be content with just two.
The second period started as the first had finished and Wild player-coach Ollie Barron gave Widnes a 3-0 lead after 26 minutes.
That goal prompted a timeout from the Telford bench and, while one can only speculate as to what was discussed, it can hardly be pure coincidence that, straight at the restart Brittle was drawn into an altercation at the face-off that eventually saw both him and Barron – the two most influential players on the Wild team in the game thus far – both banished to the penalty box – Brittle with 2+2 minutes for fighting and Barron with a 10 minute misconduct penalty.
In the immediate aftermath of this, two more Wild players picked up minor penalties and the Tigers scored two goals – on 30 minutes exactly and 31.09 – to put them right back into the game.
The score remained 3-2 at the clash at end of the second period but the Wild team must have felt as if they had been mugged and there was still a lot to do in the third stanza.
The last 20 minutes saw Widnes outshoot the Tigers by two to one but whatever they tried, they could not get past the Telford netminder.
At the other end, Telford had eight shots on goal, of which three beat Matt Croyle, giving the league leaders a 5-3 advantage with 10 minutes left to play in the encounter.
With one minute left on the clock and the score still at a tantalisingly close 5-3, Widnes pulled netminder Croyle in favour of an extra attacker. Unfortunately, this eventually led to the ‘ almost inevitable’ Empty Net Goal with just 12 seconds left to play and the Wild slumped to a disappointing 6-3 defeat.
The home game on Sunday against the Dragons development team was an ideal opportunity to bounce back and the visit of one of the league’s most porous defences provided an entertaining match with plenty of goals and other incidents.
It actually took Widnes almost seven minutes to score the game’s opening goal – a powerplay strike, from Pavel Vales while the Dragons were sitting