News Round Up
A quiet summer on the road for Roscommon's darters, with few travelling this summer.
In May, Sean Fleming reached the Grand Prix Final and secured a trip to Hull for the Winmau World Masters and Lakeside Qualifiers.
Sean lost out in the final to Jacko Barry, but a place in the final 2 was good enough to secure a place in Hull.
Unfortunately, due to the late scheduling and short notice given about the Masters and Lakeside qualifiers this year, Sean could not travel due to other committments.
In June, the Grand Finals of the Ireland Players championship took place in Kilkenny. Mick Egan took his palce int he finals, but failed to get out of the group stages. Cork's Damian O'Driscoll won the mens competition. Unfortunately, due to cutbacks, there was no TV coverage this year by TG4.
In July, the finest collection of darting talent Roscommon has seen in years gathered in the Coachman's Inn for an Open singles tournament. A host of Internationals, laced with PDC regulars and other local talents, fought out some superb games throughout the day. Barry Copelands 4-3 win over Sean McGowan, Connie Finnan's 4-3 win over Martin Heneghan and Aodhagan O'Neill's 4-3 win over Mick Egan being three outstanding games. In the semi-finals, Barry Copeland threw well to beat a decent Terry McNulty effort, and John O'Shea overcame Connie Finnan 5-4 in the game of the day. In the final, Northern Ireland international and recent All-Ireland Open finalist Barry Copeland continued his good form, beating PDC regular John O'Shea 6-4 in a top class final.
Semi-finals:
John O'Shea 5 Connie Finnan 4;
Barry Copeland 5 Terry McNulty 2;
Final:
Barry Copeland 6 John O'Shea 4.
In September, Mick Egan and John Kelly travelled to Hull for the Winmau World Masters and Lakeside qualifiers.
Despite a lack of match practice Egan put in good performances both days of the Winmau World Masters and Lakeide Qualifiers.
In the World Masters, Egan lost to England's Pip Blackwell on a 3-2 scoreline. All sets went 2-1 in legs. In the final leg, Blackwell opened with scores of 140, 100 and 180 before finishing in 13 darts to take the win.
Raddie Szaganski from Limerick proved the best of the Irish, reaching the last 16 of the qualifiers, before losing out to Dutch player Christian Kist live on stage on ESPN.
A huge effort from Egan in Fridays Lakeside Qualifiers went unrewarded as he lost out to The Netherlands Christian Kist on a 2 sets to 1 scoreline. In a format where each set was best of five legs, the final set was decided 6-5 in a sudden death leg. With Egan having missed a dart for the chance of a 6-4 win in the final set, Kist hit back an took out a 107 finish for a 6-5 win in the final set.win the final leg. Kist progressed for a further 6 rounds to qualify for the Lakeside World Championships next January. Egan proved to run Kist much closer than many others with Kist not dropping another set until his final match where he beat Denmark's Vladamir Anderson 2-1.In May, Sean Fleming reached the Grand Prix Final and secured a trip to Hull for the Winmau World Masters and Lakeside Qualifiers.
Sean lost out in the final to Jacko Barry, but a place in the final 2 was good enough to secure a place in Hull.
Unfortunately, due to the late scheduling and short notice given about the Masters and Lakeside qualifiers this year, Sean could not travel due to other committments.
In June, the Grand Finals of the Ireland Players championship took place in Kilkenny. Mick Egan took his palce int he finals, but failed to get out of the group stages. Cork's Damian O'Driscoll won the mens competition. Unfortunately, due to cutbacks, there was no TV coverage this year by TG4.
In July, the finest collection of darting talent Roscommon has seen in years gathered in the Coachman's Inn for an Open singles tournament. A host of Internationals, laced with PDC regulars and other local talents, fought out some superb games throughout the day. Barry Copelands 4-3 win over Sean McGowan, Connie Finnan's 4-3 win over Martin Heneghan and Aodhagan O'Neill's 4-3 win over Mick Egan being three outstanding games. In the semi-finals, Barry Copeland threw well to beat a decent Terry McNulty effort, and John O'Shea overcame Connie Finnan 5-4 in the game of the day. In the final, Northern Ireland international and recent All-Ireland Open finalist Barry Copeland continued his good form, beating PDC regular John O'Shea 6-4 in a top class final.
Semi-finals:
John O'Shea 5 Connie Finnan 4;
Barry Copeland 5 Terry McNulty 2;
Final:
Barry Copeland 6 John O'Shea 4.
In September, Mick Egan and John Kelly travelled to Hull for the Winmau World Masters and Lakeside qualifiers.
Despite a lack of match practice Egan put in good performances both days of the Winmau World Masters and Lakeide Qualifiers.
In the World Masters, Egan lost to England's Pip Blackwell on a 3-2 scoreline. All sets went 2-1 in legs. In the final leg, Blackwell opened with scores of 140, 100 and 180 before finishing in 13 darts to take the win.
Raddie Szaganski from Limerick proved the best of the Irish, reaching the last 16 of the qualifiers, before losing out to Dutch player Christian Kist live on stage on ESPN.
Sean McGowan was the best of the Irish, reaching the last 8 before he too went down to Kist on a 2-0 scoreline.
Roscommon Youth and newcomer John Kelly was beaten 4-1 in the second round of The Winmau World Youth Masters having beaten Dutch opponent Lars Fransen 4-2 in the first round. Checkouts of 101 and 86 taking the final two legs of that contest.
