Yet again, Antipodean hotshots Brody Klinge and Raymond Smith completely monopolised the latest Australian Darts Association Tour – rather like two blokes playing said board game who somehow own all the station and every other set going. The rest of the field are basically sat there clutching Old Kent Road and a single utility card while contemplating flipping the table in frustration.
At the season opener in Mandurah, the pair shared all four titles on offer. Then at the next stop in Canberra, they casually bagged another one each because apparently allowing anybody else to enjoy themselves would be deeply irresponsible. In fact, only Robbie King and Darren Penhall have managed to prevent these two Aussie giants from winning absolutely everything this year – and the latter is Cornish, which somehow makes the whole situation feel even stranger. Like discovering the final boss in a video game is actually from Truro.
This time just up the road from the Gold Coast – sixty miles which for them lot is a short walk – they duo took the piss even more spectacularly.
All four finals featured the exact same two players. At this point the ADA Tour is beginning to resemble the University Boat Race.
It’s effectively their own personal State of Origin series if Queensland and Victoria were involved instead of New South Wales. Somewhere, the rest of the Australian darts scene are probably beginning to experience the same emotional fatigue as Premier League clubs watching Manchester City casually hoover up domestic cup trophies like Pacman with anger issues.
Klinge claimed the opening two events – Friday and then Saturday’s curtain raiser – before Smith wrestled momentum back later that afternoon, clawing the annual deficit back to 5-4. Then, following a questionable switch to a set-play format which felt about as necessary as adding subtitles to a Punch and Judy show, Smith defeated Brody again. And in fitting fashion, he did it via a deciding leg because apparently these two are contractually obligated to provide maximum drama at all times.
Remarkably, across all four finals, only one failed to go all the way to a last-leg decider – Klinge’s second triumph of the weekend where he magnanimously allowed Smith to lose 6-4 instead of dragging everybody into full squeaky-bum territory again. Even then, it was still closer than most of Liverpool attacker, Cody Gakpo’s shots on goal.
In the nicest possible way, the remainder of the tour are probably secretly hoping that come next month’s gathering, both Klinge and Smith accidentally get lost en route to the venue – or fuck the trip off altogether. Although admittedly that seems highly unlikely for Brody considering the next stop is in his home state of Victoria and you’d need the navigational instincts of a concussed pigeon to fail to locate a venue you presumably know fairly well.
That now makes twelve completed events in 2026 and, quite frankly, the ADA Tour is beginning to resemble the Scottish Premiership where the same two inevitably end up winning everything while everybody else politely applauds and pretends they still believe in competitive balance.
