World Cup of Darts Review: Northern Ireland cap off a tournament for the ages!

Northern Ireland won the World Cup for the first time in a tournament full of surprises and iconic moments.

Daryl Gurney and Josh Rock paired up as Team Northern Ireland to beat Wales in the final in a last leg decider, in what many have described to be the best World Cup final ever.

Josh Rock couldn’t stop hitting 180s to start off the leg, and with Jonny Clayton and Gerwyn Price not at their best, Team Wales saw themselves fortunate to be going into the first break just 3-2 down and on-throw.

In the second section of the match, Rock’s scoring prowess continued but the clinical finishing of the Welsh pairing, 5/5 on doubles, saw the scores level after the second break.

Wales were 7-5 up at one point and had several darts to go 8-5 up but spurned the opportunities, which was certainly a massive turning point in the match. Northern Ireland then raced into a 9-7 lead, just a leg away from the title as Gurney took out some vital finishes. Drama didn’t end there though as Wales came back to level it at 9-9 to take us to a sudden death leg shootout for the Championship.

Winning the bull-up proved to be crucial as Northern Ireland had the throw in the last leg.

Daryl Gurney hit a maximum, matched by Gerwyn Price in the following visit. Josh Rock then hit a 171 to leave D8 after nine darts for even more tournament darts. The absurdity of the match was recognised by Price, who high-fived and laughed with Josh Rock at the back of the stage. The win for Northern Ireland was sealed with an 11-darter by Daryl Gurney, to bring to a close an incredible match.

England went into the tournament as overwhelming favourites, being the five-time reigning and defending champions, with World Number One Luke Humphries MBE and World Number Two and reigning World Champion Luke Littler MBE as a duo. However, fell at the first hurdle, to host nation Germany, with Martin Schindler and Ricardo Pietreczko clinical on the outer-ring, as Germany came out as 8-4 winners.

Gerwyn Price revealed that Team England lacked team cohesion. “[Team England] were the only two players that didn’t turn up together, didn’t sit together, didn’t play as a team,” the Iceman said.

Chinese Taipei brought World Cup Heritage during their match with India. 3-0 up and coasting, Chinese Taipei had an opportunity for a whitewash win, however, a moment to forget happened to Pupo Teng-Lieh. India missed a couple darts at D7 but Pupo thought the leg was over and so started throwing as if he was on 501, which meant he busted his score after hitting T19, when he was supposed to be aiming at D19. Teammate An-Sheng Lu certainly wasn’t happy and heated exchanges could be seen throughout the pair. Things weren’t helped with Lu’s failed blind 180 attempt and by yet another miscount from Pupo. Chinese Taipei eventually got over the line, but wasn’t enough as Czechia progressed to the Round of 16 from Group J.

Argentina were the only nation to make their debut in Frankfurt. They managed to top Group L by beating 16th seed Finland and New Zealand. Australia proved to be too strong however as Damon Heta and Simon Whitlock eased to an 8-1 victory. A huge achievement none-the-less for Argentina and for darts in South America as a whole.

Group B provided the shock of the group stages, however, as 6th seed Belgium went crashing out. It was a new pairing for the Red Devils as reigning World Grand Prix Champion Mike de Decker made his World Cup debut replacing Kim Huybrechts as the partner to Dimitri van den Bergh. After winning 4-1 against Latvia and being 3-0 up against the Philippines, Belgium looked set for an easy route into the Round of 16. However, Team Philippines, consisting of Paulo Nebrida and Lourence Ilagan, came back to win 4-3 after multiple missed match darts from de Decker, sending them to the next round.

Hong Kong were another huge talking point from this talking point as they reached the quarter-final stages. They took full advantage of the group they were in, beating USA on the opening night, who had Jules van Dongen, someone struggling with dartitis. A whitewash win against Bahrain sealed their place into Saturday’s action, where they beat Sweden in the Round of 16, a team captained by a below-par Jeffrey de Graff. Wales proved to be too strong for them in the quarter-finals. In one of their post-match interviews, both Hong Kong players Lok-Yin Lee and Man-Lok Leung called for support to help them and other Asian players achieve the dream of becoming professional dart players, which is financially not viable at the moment.

Two-time World Cup Champions Scotland faced a swift exit as the third seed as they were whitewashed in their Round of 16 match against the Netherlands. Two-time World Champion Peter Wright, someone who has struggled for form in the past two years, barely averaged above 70.

The four-time World Cup Champions Netherlands had a successful tournament, despite some backing them to struggle, following the withdrawal of Michael van Gerwen, who was dealing with personal problems. Gian van Veen made his debut to partner Danny Noppert and 16 legs on the spin, not dropping a single leg during both of their group stage matches and also in the Round of 16. An 8-2 win over Czechia set up a semi-final clash with Wales, which they lost 8-5, despite leading for large parts of the match.

Other funny moments from this tournament included veteran Mensur Suljovic of Austria telling Ricardo Fernandez which way to leave the oche after being told many times by referee Kirk Bevins. Petr Krivka was also a talking point on social media as it seemed as if he lost a tooth after celebrations in Czechia’s win against India, which confirmed their progression to the Round of 16. Krivka later revealed, disappointingly to fans, that it was only chewing gum.

Yet another year full of brilliant moments from the only doubles tournament on the PDC circuit.