Why are Irish players not hugely represented in World Darts?

Matt Santos

Now, please dont think that this is some knocking thread about Irish darts and the state that it finds itself in or anything of the sort but the question is just sincere.
There are a huge contingent of English, Scottish and Welsh players which you would obviously expect but then there is a huge Dutch crew, an Australian contingent, a German few and a guy from Belgium that went deep at the PDC.
My question is with the sport so obviously healthy in Ireland how come we dont have three or four household names at the top end?

mdwexford

Not good enough seems to be the obvious answer.

Scotland only really have Anderson and Wales only really have Webster in the PDC as well.

Dolan is in the top 32 and made a tv final which is more than a lot of players have done.

Littlehorny

I'm certainly no expert but as far as i know England has a very strong county scene and if your good enough to play for certain counties you are very good. I have seen a couple of games in the world championships where the oponents were actually teamates at county level. The fact also England has a big tradition in darts helps. Also i would hazard a guess that normal Irish guys simply cannot afford to persue a career in darts, travel and accomadation would be too dear and unless your at the top level prize money would not even cover your exspenses.

dionsiseire

The English country scene is pretty much a league set up. So imagine weekly high standard darts compared to the odd tournaments you get with the counties over here.

Add to that, some of our best players cannot get sponsorship, for example Jacko Barry went into PDC with a good few sponsors, the recession hit and he lost most of them. He was an expendible asset to them. Jacko did quite well in his time in PDC and I think peaked at 24th in the ranking. Some consider Mick his brother to be the better of the two and Mick could never secure sponsorship. I believe he is now suffering with the yips (though I might be wrong)

Dolan has the game to do it and seems to be the only self sufficient player we have at the minute.

Shane O, William, Mick McGowan have the darts to do it but have struggled to produce their best in the floor circuit.

Connie did himself no disgrace in his qualifier, actually the match was one of the more higher quality pre-lims, the only way Connie will become a world beater is if he gets backing and regular top level darts. Half the problem here in Ireland is that there isn't a regular enough top level competitive scene to keep you at your top level.

Add to that the PDC players all tend to practice together, so Taylor with Hamilton etc. Playing a PDC pro day in and out would drag you up a notch for sure. I wonder how many of our lads have the spare time to practice together ya know.

There's a lot of factors in it. money certainly can be the biggest blame

celticbest

dionsiseire wrote: »

Add to that, some of our best players cannot get sponsorship, for example Jacko Barry went into PDC with a good few sponsors, the recession hit and he lost most of them. He was an expendible asset to them. Jacko did quite well in his time in PDC and I think peaked at 24th in the ranking. Some consider Mick his brother to be the better of the two and Mick could never secure sponsorship. I believe he is now suffering with the yips (though I might be wrong)

Yeah, Mick seems to be starting to get over his dartitis from recent comments I've heard.

Mick is probably the better player but Jacko always seems to beat him in the big games, it like a jinx he has over Mick.

StephenHendry

i suppose there is not a big tradition here. add to that expenses of travel. i think mick mcgowan might have made real progress had he not been hit with illness which affected him badly in that he couldn't practise as much as he could. in 07 wc against taylor in round 2, mick averaged nearly 100 and eventually lost 4-2.

i don't know too much about jacko or mick barry, but remember jacko beating beaton in the world grand prix in 2010. i agree that the players in the uk would have the benefit of practising with a high ranking pdc player like taylor, hamilton etc. and if jacko or mick mcgowan were from stoke they would be able to benefit from this

dionsiseire

Well from the Rush league anyway, Jacko and Mick have dominated and Mcgowan hasn't been at it since the illness.

If Mick is on his way back then that's great news, I've played on a team with both of them and they are poxy formidable to take legs off. I owe both of them a couple of bashings at this stage.

Willie seems to be the great white hope at the minute, he seems to have settled to the PDC better than Shane. If Shane settles then we could have two big time players.

shockframe

A number of factors

1. Ireland is a small island (presume where talking 32 counties here) of 6 million people whereas the likes of england has 55 million or so and the dutch 15 million.this would account for the high numbers of english and dutch in the game.

2. the smoking ban has played its part over the years.think ireland more than any other nation has been affected by this.

3.limit to where you can play the game.not many pubs in my home town has a dartboard so there is about a 1 in 5 chance of finding a pub with a board.

4. The number of other sports in the country. Britain has them to a degree aswell but the profile of the Rugby, Soccer and especially the GAA in a small country like Ireland makes it even harder for minority sports like darts to prosper.although I am a massive GAA and soccer fan so I presume there are many darts fans that also fit this profile.

5.Countries like the Netherlands are a big soccer nation but darts as we all know is a religion over there aswell. no GAA like institution or indeed other prominent sport seems to be around.easier to focus on darts

6.ignored by the masses.A former well known Irish journalist in particular was scathing of the 2003 lakeside in a book - "you know your not the greatest sportswriter when your covering the embassy" or something along those lines.

7.location is not ideal.easier for uk based pdc players to compete in players tournaments due to travel.different for Irish players with costs,travel and other work.

8.Irish players tend to sway towards the glamorus PDC with more established players on that side making it hard to break through.would be better to start in the BDO as there is less big tournaments and scattered out longer throughout the year.

9.As someone said maybe they arent good enough.that said connie finnan should have won his game in the world and might have nicked a spot in the last 32.

10.Lots of one-hit wonder types.Mcgowan,Barry,O'Connor have shown glimpses of talent but have never followed it up on (to quote rod) "the big stage".McCloskey and Gurney did alright at Lakeside recently but have both fallen off the radar.gurney in particular is mystifying given his age.had huge potential some years back.

That I would see as some issues surrounding our lack of success.

maxidart

sponsorship is main factor in are lack of success we all know these guys can play darts but its haveing the money to do it

tippat

why all the doom and gloom one of the biggest problems is sponsors but if you look around there is some great young dart players coming through and when the country picks up again and it will they will benifit big time from the exposure they are getting now in tournaments here in ireland and a lot of them are going across to england o play in events over there, watch out for irish players making a big impact over the next 5-6 years