The semi-finals of the competition consisted of a round robin, 501, Best of 5 comp as unfortunately one of the qualifying pairs from El Capitan could not make the date of the finals which had not been announced at the start of the competition.
So six good men and true representing the Jackals, El Capitan and The Hub Hyenas had a play-off to see the two pairs with the highest number of legs won go through to the finals which was best of 7.
Pair 1 was the infamous Alex Nikolov, sporting a rather fetching Peaky Blinder hat, and his Polish Chum Tomek PolskiDolski (who’s real surname I cannot remember let alone spell!). These lads from the Hub faced father and son Eddie and Aroldas Klimonis from El Capitan, the latter of which were nearest the bull and first to throw.
A calm start to the comp saw a couple of tons from Alex and a narrow miss on a two-dart out (T15-D20) from young Tom but is was Aroldas who did the business with 6-D20 to take the first leg. Alex (100) and Tom (100, 16-D8) evened things up in leg 2 and despite a couple of 100’s and a 140 from Alex, the Lithuanian duo took legs 3 and 4 courtesy of Daddy Klimonis’ D20 and 15-D2, respectively.
Alex and Tom stayed on board to play pair number 3: Graham Solomons and Hugh Galloway of the Jackals and although warmed up, the Hub lads succumbed another 3-1 defeat, effectively eliminating themselves from the competition with no need to play the third round. They did however get another 140 apiece, as did our Hugh, but Grahams 5 x 100’s and quick finishes – D2, D7, D16 took the Jackals into the final.
The final was Jackals all the way with Graham scoring 140 with his first throw. El Cap were trailing 200 behind when Aroldas scored T20-T20-T19 (177) to bring them right back into contention. Alas for them, Hugh checked out on D4 to take leg 1. In Leg 2, the wisdom of Solomons quickly brought the score down (81, 100, 95, 94) and again Hugh did the business, this time with D3 with very little opposition from the Klimoni.
Another 140 and two ton plusses in Leg 3 from Graham got Hugh to striking distance again. Aroldas narrowly missed out on a 122 finish scoring 82 but missing the D20 and Hugh got the Jackals their 3rd leg with D5. The 4th leg was as far as it needed to go with a great performance from Hugh, 98, 100 and 20-D10 for the match
A big thanks to Sid Cross for doing all the chalking and officiating and to Dickie Hunt and Simone for keeping a record of the scores and results. Thanks too to the host venue, Trinity Bar, Rioja Centre. Final thanks to all those that came to support and to the Paddy’s day hats that came in handy for wiping the board and Sid’s spillages! A great night with some very good darts.
Missing results from last week’s league Match: Jaguars 4 – 8 Las Rosas.
Player of the match for Jaguars was our Patty Poo Schofield who had the only singles win but what a win it was, checking out with D6 for the first leg and then a whopping 133 (57-60-D8) against John Spencer. She also got the finish (D3) in her pairs with Lelly Bear Eagles against David and Antonio.
Denise Green got the Jags’ first leg in the 2nd triples with a first dart at D19 and Simone got the 2nd leg in the 3rd triples with D4. Wendy Hayward got a 132, Sim and Lesley got 100 each and Pat had a 100 and 112 to add to that very impressive 133 out. Notable play from Las Rosas came from Jem Gledhill with a T17-D10 finish in the pairs and a score of 132 in his singles. John Boden was pretty handy on the check-outs, particularly his 9-D16 in his singles against Wendy.
Man of the Match goes to Terry Brindley who got the Bullies first leg with D6 in the triples and a great T20-T19-D9) 132 out in his singles against Lisa. A lovely night was had with the lads from Las Rosas of San Miguel.
Match and comp reports by Simone de Lacy
