That’s a wrap as far as the penultimate weekend of this season’s ADA Tour goes and, once again, Brody Kling added to his title haul, taking a brace of the titles in Penrith.
The Melbourne man picked up the opener and the last event of the weekend to extend his lead at the top of the ADA Order Of Merit.
Before we get onto the Kling plaudits, we need to recognise just how good this bloke is. At darts, I mean – for all I know, he might not be able to cook for shit or drives like a muppet.
But on the oche, he is more than capable of doing great things on the PDC Pro Tour. It’s just a small matter of distance and, perhaps, funding. It means uprooting sticks to the other side of the world, having a good few bob in your bank account and taking a leap.
However, talent-wise – there is no question.
Other Aussies have done it. So if Brody did take the plunge, he wouldn’t have to adopt a giant red and yellow foamed hat and conjure up bizarre Euro Tour walk-ons. Neither would he have to grow a ridiculously long beard or make every staff member in a burger joint crap themselves when he strolled in for a bite.
Unless, of course, he wished to.
Anyway, all of that is a question for another time.
Kling kicked off Friday night, pinching the thrilling last-leg decider to deny Joe Comito.
Nicknamed The Waterboy, I like to think of Joe as the Aussie darts version of Joe Pesci. Relatively small and with the immediately similar Italian name, ready to play a character in any Mafia film. Although imagining Don Comito in Home Alone is equally as amusing.
Then, in the first of Saturday’s double headers, honours went to Tim Pusey.
Sadly for Joe, again the bridesmaid. Which I guess, on this occasion, makes Pusey ‘the gushing bride’.
See what I did there?
The Magnet also grabbed the win in a last-leg shootout which, whilst great for him, probably led to Joe receiving lots of unwanted pats on the back and hearing things like, “Strueth, that’s twice now, mate. Unlucky.”
Still, better to have gotten two runner-up spots than bugger all. Something Comito can muse about when he is collecting everyone’s water.
Into the winners’ circle later that day was Michael Bajowski who, like Kling, represents Victoria.
I needed a quick Google search to find out more on Mike and see, nickname-wise, he has gone down the old, “Oh, I’m not arsed. Just take the first syllable of my surname and stick a vowel on the end” road.
How beautifully Australian.
Anyway, Bajowski got the better of Jeremy Fagg 6-4 – and I already used the witticism of ‘stubbed him out’ on Facebook.
Waste not, want not. But I’m not recycling it twice.
To complete that sandwich I mentioned, Kling took the last event of the weekend 2-0, which traditionally changes to set format.
Why? I have no idea. But I don’t need to know. Just recognise it I guess. Which I have now.
Once again, The Magnet reached the final but no double crown for him – or you could say Pusey Galore – as Brody once again claimed another ADA title.
Before I give a nod to the Consolation Champs, it did cross my mind where I had seen the names Kling, Pusey and Fagg before.
Then I remembered my Dad’s old DVD collection about a nice man who arrives, cigarette in hand, to fix a photocopier.
Pure coincidence, obviously.
Young Tristan claimed the first “Bollocks, I’m out so I will have a go at this event” tournament, defeating Hayden Randell 4-3 in another finale which went the distance.
Then my commentary buddy, Declan Bailey, got in on the act, defeating Zinzan Culshaw, which isn’t a player I know a great deal about but, if names were permitted, would love to be able to use it in Scrabble – especially on a triple-word score.
The Poles tend to go a little Z-crazy in their vocabularies but then again, famous footballer Zinedine Zidane is French, so who knows. Culshaw didn’t have an Aussie flag next to his name, which means someone either couldn’t be arsed sticking one in, or they were unsure.
It was just before the Event 19 consolation final when my mullet-haired mate messaged me, asking if we did the double, could he get a nice image created too.
To be honest, as I was juggling and checking about 400 tournaments all over the world at the time, I didn’t have a clue what he was on about.
So I had a look and noticed he won the earlier consolation and it clicked.
“Why not?” I thought
Then he went and lost in the showdown to Bradley Horton.
Declan’s excuse: “I ran out of steam,” which roughly translated means, “I was too pissed at that point.”
Well done, Brian, anyway. Don’t want to detract from your special moment. Being English like myself, it’s nice to see us Pommies can upset the Aussies in their own backyard once in a while. God knows it doesn’t happen too often – especially in cricket!
Then finally, a guy named Ayden Vanderwiel, who I am guessing is of Dutch descent, pipped Hayden Randell at the post in Sunday’s what I reckon you guys call “The Conso”.
Yeah, you would much rather have a hot blonde in your bed who does tricks with bananas. But if that ain’t happening, a consolation prize of something without the fruit is something to fall back on.
After all, we can’t all be Brody or the Pusey that got the cream.
Just South Australia left to go next month, then we will know who ends where on the league table, which you can see below.
