To the Defence Darts quartet competing at the WDF World Masters – take a bow, lads. You served your country proud.
The journey for individual silverware may be over, but these four boys did a sterling job on their maiden appearances in a prestigious world major darts tournament. And before I start having a little fun with them all – they know the score – let’s applaud their fantastic efforts.
Let’s not forget, these aren’t officially darts players. They are men who defend our lands but just happen to be damn good on the oche too. Brave lads who have faced the Taliban and been to war zones, so the oche at the WDF World Masters was probably an equally scary prospect!
Whilst their path to qualification may have started a while back, their trip to Las Vegas began just over a week ago.
Being the Royal Air Force representative, Gareth Edwards decided to borrow a jet. Apparently, we have loads, so who’s going to miss one for a few days? Anyway, it’s faster getting to the States that way, although Navy chap Dan Appleby did offer a battleship. Takes too long, Daniel.
Off the four went. Edwards as the pilot, and the other three embroiled in a game of Monopoly, which turned quite vicious when Army man Brett Morgan-Williams stopped refusing to pay veteran Danny Humphries when he kept landing on his stations. Rules of the game, my son – gotta cough up, sorry.
By the time the foursome touched down in Nevada, Morgan-Williams had had to remove an iron and a small dog from his arse. Not the ideal start.
Onto the darts.
Sadly for Humphries, he may have been crowned victorious in the travel board game fiasco, but he didn’t make it out of his group despite picking up a solid win over Canada’s Ethan Goudie. However, he lost the other two, and no amount of fake Monopoly winnings was successful as a bribe.
The other three did manage to get through to the knockout stages. So let’s start with Gareth Edwards, who sounds more like a Welsh scrum-half than someone who, whilst he may be great at flying jets, faces a hefty fine when he returns home.
The Lossie Eagle – because everyone in the RAF must have a really hard bird-themed moniker – won all four of his group games. Happy days. He then smashed home-soil chucker Kristoffer Abat 5-1, but eventually got stung by The Scorpion and USA veteran of the tungsten variety, David Fatum. No shame in that – he’s quite the operator.
Onto the Scot in the pack, Mr Brett Morgan-Williams, fighting out of the Army corner. Following some minor emergency surgery to restore the small iron and poor dog to their original condition and safely back in the Monopoly box, Shotgun fired extremely well, winning all three of his group games. One of them was against Paul Krohne, who has played at the highest level. Always nice when you beat a German and render their beach towel redundant for the rest of the event.
The double-barrelled-named assassin then edged the experienced Aaron Turner. Then his fine run came to an end at the hands of Flemish flinger Lennart Faes, who showed that whilst Belgium is having the kind of year on the oche that Keir Starmer is having at Downing Street, there are still the occasional shining lights.
Finally, and by no means least, Dan Appleby. Concerns were initially raised when, donned in a shirt which said ‘The Big Apple’ on the back, the doughnut had travelled to the wrong American city. However, no panic. It’s just his nickname. Easy to guess why – take the fruit part from your surname and do something clever with it. RAF veteran and friend of the quartet Billy Banana is still having a few dilemmas with his moniker.
The Navy thrower also enjoyed a great group outing, winning three of his four matches – the only loss coming at the hands of young St Helens kid Ben Townley. And let me tell you – he isn’t easy to beat.
But then, in the last 64, it came to a halt when The Big Apple met The Big Rig, Ben Robb. The Kiwi has picked up countless DPNZ titles back home and has also played on some of the world’s biggest stages, including Ally Pally on no fewer than five occasions.
Try as he may, Dan wasn’t able to inflict enough damage on the New Zealander, bowing out 5-1.
All was not lost, though. The lads still had the Open Pairs to go. And given there were four of them, it split nicely. Whether they used an overly unnecessary game of rock, paper, scissors to determine who went with whom, I have no idea.
But I can tell you it was Gareth Edwards teaming up with Dan Appleby, leaving Brett Morgan-Williams with Danny Humphries, which also told me he’d forgiven him for stuffing tiny metallic Monopoly markers unceremoniously up his backside.
The Lossie Eagle and Mr Big Apple had a bit of fortune at the start, with their opening opponents withdrawing. Perhaps a game of Connect Four had gone terribly wrong for Messrs Heffernon and Hastle – or maybe they didn’t fancy taking on two Defence dudes. Either way, the boys got a bye.
Frustratingly though, they were ousted by a duo of Germans in the last 64, agonisingly losing in a last-leg decider. Death and famine aside, there’s not much worse.
Much better success came from BMW – which I’ve only just noticed is also a famous car model, the same one that I am currently having a mind-numbingly annoying oil issue with – and Danny Humphries.
They kicked off really well, spanking the Yank duo of McNair and Wenck before pipping Northern Ireland’s Davy Glenn and Geoff Wylie to the post. Yet the dream bravely faded in the last 16, edged by the narrowest of margins by Colten Miller and Vincent Paluscio, the latter of whom I am sure was a character in The Godfather.
So, with just a spot of cricket left – the darting variety – and a few other events going on, that’s it for the boys’ American adventure. I’m sure that away from the oche, they found things to amuse themselves with.
But as the old saying goes – what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Good luck to Gareth trying to explain the jet-borrowing thing. Should cost you a stripe at minimum!
