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Kevin McDonnell – Best Cork Player at
Qualifiers
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Kevin McDonnell |
Two World Championship qualifying
competitions were held at the Green Isle Hotel in Dublin over last
weekend but while none of the Cork players achieved outright success at
the events many notable performances were recorded by those brave enough
to make the trip up to the capital.
The main event at the weekend was the
Tom Kirby Memorial Trophy which was a qualifying competition for the
Ladbrokes.com World Championship which will be held at Alexandra Palace
in London next December.
First Cork player up was Damien
O’Driscoll who jetted in earlier that morning from his holidays in the
Canaries and he had a winning start on board {1}. Unfortunately, jet-lag
caught up with Damien and he went down to Northern Ireland
International, Barry Copeland, in the next round.
Peter Quinn also won his first round
match but he also went out in the second round to PDC Professional,
William O’Connor from Limerick. John O’Shea, who is also a
regular on the PDC circuit, won two rounds on board {5} before losing
out to last year’s runner-up, Stephen Byrne from Wexford.
Best wishes are extended to
O’Driscoll and O’Shea who are off on their travels again this weekend to
two major events in the U.K.Damien will be competing in the World
Masters in Hull while John will be in action in two rounds of the PDC
Players’ Championship in Derby.
The best of the Cork players in the
Tom Kirby event was Kevin McDonnell who won three rounds to reach the
final of board {8}. Kevin came up against one of Ireland’s
most consistent performers, Benny Grace from Kilkenny,
in the last sixteen and while he
threw superbly he missed some chances on his doubles and lost by five
legs to two.
The competiton was played down to the
last two players, Connie Finnan {Limerick} and Shane O’Connor {Dublin},
who will now contest the final on stage at the City West Hotel in Dublin
prior to the World Grand final on Sunday, October 9th.
The Irish Under-21 Matchplay
Championship was also staged last weekend with a place in the last 64 of
the World Youth Championship.
Tomas Faller from Macroom, who plays
his darts with the UCC team in university competitions, made a winning
debut in national competitions with a 4-3 victory over Irish Undr-21
International,
James Gearon from Tipperary, but his
journey ended their as he lost out to last year’s runner-up, David Coyne
from Kilkenny.
Darren Savage from Rylane competed in
his first-ever darts competition and even though he lost out in the
first round he gave an impressive performance and is certainly a player
to watch in the future.
The Under-21 Champion was Ryan Maher
{Dublin} who defeated last year’s winner, Martin Heneghan {Mayo} 4 – 1
in the final.
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