Darts

ivoralljack

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Wales beat Holland 2-0 to make the final. Gez won 4-1 after missing a match dart at 3-0 without, unsurprisingly, getting anywhere near the form of his previous game. Jonny somehow went through 4-2 despite his absolutely fucking infuriating habit of chucking darts into the 1,3 and 5 beds. He was at it again but was lucky in that his opponent blew hot and cold in the game. Twice he threw consecutive 180s but the rest of his game fell to pieces and Jonny scaped home. Both will need to be at top form to stand a chance against Team England if that's who they get in the final.

Fair play to Gezzie - ten days ago he wasn't sure if he could be here; I assume because his injured hand hasn't yet fully healed. Thank goodness he made it and now we've got a puncher's chance in the final.
 

ivoralljack

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Boy oh boy. Rank outsiders Australia only went and beat England in the semi 2-0!!!!! Bully was 3-1 up then noticably took his foot off the gas and lost 3-4. It was incredible to see how loose his play became when he only needed one leg for the game and he paid the price with some costly misses and mistakes. Whitlock then stepped up and hammered Wade 4-0 to put Oz in the final against Wales.

Team England paid the price for complacency as they are a WAY better team than OZ. A good lesson here for Wales. Our team is also way better than the Aussies but they will need to focus fully on their game because Oz will be dangerous if they're allowed a chance. You have been warned, Jonny, keep OUT of those fcuking 1 and 5 beds. Here we go then.
 

ivoralljack

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Format for the final changes. First up are the singles. Then they play doubles before playing the reverse singles. First to 3 wins will be champions.
 

ivoralljack

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Heta beat Gezzie 4-0 in the first game after Gez missed leg darts in the first two. Then his game went to pot. His darts were flying into the 1 and 5 beds (not even the trebles) and he even missed a big 10 by going in the 6 bed to leave himself double 18 instead of his favourite tops. Must be spending too much time around Jonny. :( Don't think Gez was complacent, he was just flat, flat, flat and never got going.
 

ivoralljack

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It gets worse as Jonny goes down 2-4 to Whitlock. He missed SIX doubles in the second leg, which would have meant Whitlock needed two breaks to win. Then at 2-3 he missed two doubles at his favourite 16/8 to level and with his throw in the final leg he would have been odds on. He improved slightly on his terrible habit by only shooting four darts into the lesser beds, It's 0-2 and we are now on the doubles game which we need to win along with the two reverse singles. Can't see us doing that and we're already 0-1 down and need to break the Aussies to win.
 

ivoralljack

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Sheesh!! Wales 0-2 down in the doubles fight back to win 4-3, so we're still in it with two reverse singles to play. We need to win both. Jonny got the winning double but in one leg he twice shot for the bull and didn't even get a 25! No doubt both our players are struggling and it might be down to the excessive heat and humidity in the arena. Many players have complained about it and, whilst it's the same for all, it affects some players more than others. I might point out that Oz is a little bit hotter than Wales! :ROFLMAO:
 

ivoralljack

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Jonny went down 2-4 in his singles so Oz win the World Championship 3-1, Quite why Jonny played the first singles is beyond me. He's been the weak link I'm afraid to say all the way through. At 2-3 he had a 140 to take the darts against the throw, saw his opponent mess up then threw a 41 to completely let him off the hook followed by another low score with yet another dart in the 1 bed. Had he won that leg, as he most defintely should have, it would have been 3-3 with him to throw first in the deciding leg. That would have left Gezzie to throw for the title in the last game.

I'd have put Gez first up and, had he won his game, which I think he would have, the pressure on the Aussies having been 2-0 up against all expectations, would have been enormous. All academic now and, overall, Oz deserved the win as they played better than us.
 

ivoralljack

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World Matchplay darts and Jonny goes out in the first round to Roby John Rodriguez. Unfortunately Jonny was suffering from a blocked tear duct and he looked like he was throwing with a squint. Comms brushed it off but it had to have affected his game. Don't they just love to kick someone when he's down! :rolleyes:

Bad day for Welsh sport as the Saffers beat us at rugby. I'm fuming about it as by rights we should have already won the series having been blatantly cheated of a win in the first test. Even some ex Saffer players/pundits conceded that we had been given a raw deal. I hate cheating at any level and it's even worse when the cheats get away with it without repercussions. At least that bent twat Masi has been kicked out of Formula 1. Wonder where his cheating carcass will end up next - no doubt a lucrative position of some sort. :mad: I must have been brought up the wrong way!!
 

ivoralljack

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Gezzie looked on his way out when Martin Schindler had a dart for 5-2 and was throwing rubbish for him. But it was a game of two halves as they say. Gez hit back and eventually went through 10-8 but it was a hell of a tough game against a fast improving opponent. Gez averaged 116 in the final set to finish with an overall average of 99+, which gives an idea of how badly he'd thrown before that. He's been bang out of form for the past two months and perhaps his injured hand was a factor in that. If he continues to play as well as he did in the latter stages of this game he could do well but I feel he's too inconsistent right now to beat some of the other form players.
 

ivoralljack

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Gez through to the next round against Dave Chisnall. Again in the early minutes Gez just couldn't find any rhythm or consistent scores and Chizzy was romping away. Then Gez found some form and started to reel him in. He hit a few 180s, as did Chizzy and then got a superb 164 out (57 57 bull) just as Chizzy was well placed. Gez won 11-8 but it was a tough game and he's far from anywhere near his best. He plays Jose de Sousa next who's a 180 machine and looked superb putting out former world champion, Rob Cross. Going purely on current form this looks like a comfortable win for de Sousa.
 

ivoralljack

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I was wrong....... again!! :rolleyes: Gez beat de Sousa 16-14 after missing 3 darts at double 18 to go 14-8 ahead. De Sousa made his double to make it 13-9 and then went on a run of great darts to make it 14-14 until Gez got it together again in the last two games. And Gez, with an average of 104.6, matched the 180 machine with 9 apiece. But in every other stat Gez was well in front of a VERY good opponent.

He now meets Danny Noppert in the semis tomorrow who has also found form and throwing great stuff. Very difficult game that I wouldn't want to call. MVG plays Dimitri van den Bergh in the other semi and they are both throwing fantastically well too. Some great darts in store.

As a bonus, courtesy of tonight's win, Gezzie goes back to #1 in the world!! Well done, mate.
 

ivoralljack

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Gerwyn makes the final after beating Noppert 17-11 and what a show he produced!! He averaged 102+ over 28 legs and this after losing 3 consecutive legs when it seemed as if he was lucky to hit the board let alone get a score. He had gone for a break at 10-5 then must have relaxed because it was 10-8 almost before you knew it. Luckily he stopped the rot by winning the next two.

His figures when he was throwing well were incredible. He hit over 120 60s; loads of cover 57s and many other big trebles as well. He got 29 100s; 17 140s and 13 180s. In one session Noppert averaged over 109 and lost it 1-4!!!!!! Just amazing and the standard of darts today is better than I ever remember it with so many superb players. Certainly, imo, Phil Taylor would never achieve the success he did were he competing against the calibre of the present day players; and there's so many of them all capable of beating each other in a particular tournament. Of course, he would win his share but never enjoy the dominance he did in his era.

Anyway, Gez did another 9 darter tonight (his fourth of 2022) and for good measure, the first 4 darts of the next game were all triple 20s, so he was actually briefly on for consecutive 9 darters, which has never been achieved in the history of darts. As I write, Dimitri leads MVG 4-1 in their semi and he is throwing so well he has every chance of winning the entire thing even as well as Gezzie is throwing.
 

ivoralljack

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MVG turned it around and won 7 of the last 8 to take the game 17-14. Neither player hit anywhere near their best form averaging below 100. It was a scrappy stop-start affair with nothing of particular note to report. Pundit, Wayne Mardle, said that Gezzie's peformances in his last two matches are way ahead of anything by anyone else and I agree with him. If MVG doesn't up his game then Gez wins his first World Matchplay. That said, MVG is so talented, if he suddenly hits top form, he can blow anyone away. Point of interest is that both have had recent throwing hand surgery, so they'll start equal in that context. The winner? On semi-final form it's Gezzie all the way but you never know how your form will be on the night.......
 

ivoralljack

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Went to LadyGG's for dinner yesterday (scrumtious Hunter's chicken with fresh veg from the garden 😋) so I missed much of the final where Gez went down 14-18 to MVG. He was winning 4-0 when I left to go home and when I caught up I think it was 10-10. By then Gez was throwing crap and MVG starting to fire big time. How a player can go from brilliant one night, hitting everything in sight, to being absolutely dire the next night, is beyond me. The last few games would have seen Gez struggle to beat a decent county player and that's a fact.

I mean, darts isn't like boxing or football where there is opposition who are directly affecting what you do and how you perform. A dart player stands alone unmolested, unchallenged on the oche to make his throw. What he scores and how he performs is entirely down to him/her. And Gezzie just didn't measure up to MVG's performance last night as the pundits kept saying.

Nevertheless full credit to Gez for throwing great darts to make the final and for regaining his world #1 spot in the process.
 

ivoralljack

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Jonny Clayton ko'd in the first round of the Queensland Open by a complete unknown. Nothing more to say other than, in the company of professional dart players, Jonny played like a plasterer from Carmarthenshire County Council.
 

ivoralljack

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Incredible darts in the Grand Prix at Leicester. Unfortunately, holder, Jonny went out beaten by Dmitri van den Berg. Every leg went to 3-2 as did the score in sets. Jonny was disappointed to lose but the pundits reckoned that DvdB was the better player.

Down then to Gezzie to restore Welsh pride and interest by beating Joe Cullen. He won the first set, lost the second then went 1-2 sets behind after a Cullen Whitewash. Then Gez found his form. He won the fourth set with an average of 107.36 (double to start!!) and then the deciding set with an almost identical average. It was like he couldn't miss! Brilliant!! The highlight was when he took out 134 with treble 18 and two double tops. Just a superb watch.
 

ivoralljack

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No fireworks tonight as Gez moved into the semis with a routine 3-0 win over Madars Razmar. Gez was well below his best but justified his 1/6 match odds to beat his man who was nowhere near a top class player.

During the match the comms mentioned his 93 average saying that in a conventional straight start game it was easily worth three figures, So I wonder what Gezzie's 107+ average in the final two sets against Cullen would be worth then? Nathan Aspinall up next and that will be a much tougher game.
 

ivoralljack

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Gez is out stuffed 2-4 and it was an out and out horror show from him. Quite frankly he was pathetic. He missed 29 darts at a finishing double a quarter of which would have seen him win. I lost count of the number of times he slid, a la Clayton, into the 5 and 1 beds - I stopped counting after 25!!! Even the comms mentioned it. He was even finding the 3 and 7 beds when going for 19. o_O

In one leg he missed six starting darts at double 20 and Aspinall was usually getting off first. It was so bad at one stage that, being well behind in one leg, he started throwing for the double 20 for practise!! The comms described him as sloppy to say the least and "throwing here there and everywhere".

This was probably the worst I've ever seen him throw and, as a result, he has now also lost his World #1 spot to Peter Wright. If I was bad-minded I could almost think he tanked the match as Aspinall was a long odds underdog. I doubt it very much but he was that bad.
 

ivoralljack

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In the Grand Prix of Darts Jonny won his first two games in his group by 5-0 each time without playing at his best. He now progresses to the next stage even if he loses his last game. Gezzie won his first game 5-1 but I don't know what happened after that as I've missed some of the matches. Hope to catch up tomorrow.
 

ivoralljack

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I missed some of the darts and seeing now that Gezzie lost to Raymond van Barnefeld 4-5 despite, I believe, getting a 106 average. Very careless of Gez given it's a game he would have been an overwhelming favourite to win. But he is prone to lapses. Consequently, he now faces a straight shoot out with Chizzie, the 180 machine, who can slaughter anybody at his best, to progress. Gez is defending champion but anything can happen in a race to 5. It's his own fault that he's in this situation but he should have learned his lesson by now and obviously hasn't. Will be a good game though.
 
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