The ADC in the UK has enjoyed a brilliant debut year with many benefitting from the competition and the opportunity to play on a regular basis and ADC Oceania opened with their first event this weekend at the Geelong Dart Club were a near nine-darter almost added the cherry to the cake.
Amongst the winners in the opening three events were Jeremy Fagg after he beat Tim Pusey 6-2 whilst Rhys Matthewson claimed a last leg decider win against Sam Ballinger 7-6 in the Final of Event 2 in Australia. Mal Cumming won Event 3 on Sunday to wrap up an opening three-day thriller to the running of ADC Oceania and more events are expected in the near future.
Ian Dargan the Director of ADC Oceania spoke after what was a successful weekend for the introduction of the organisation and said, “positive feedback is always a good thing, and coming out of the pandemic, players had to play in their respective states.”
“We weren’t getting the best of the players in one room; this was the first time they were all together and the quality showed throughout. We are hoping to have one more event before the end of the year and one just after Christmas which will give us our qualifiers for the World Open.”
The future of Australian Darts has in recent years become a whole lot brighter due to the number of stars coming through, like Damon Heta and Raymond Smith who reached the Last 16 of last year’s World Championship at the Ally Pally.
The Heat along with World Cup partner and Winmau star Simon Whitlock completed the country’s first success in the World Cup, having beat Wales 3-1 to win in Frankfurt earlier on in the year.
“We’ve been very fortunate with our overseas players within the PDC, obviously Simon and Damon winning the World Cup and Gordon Mathers performing very solid all year reaching the Semis Finals in Townsville for the World Series”
“The ADC Oceania platform is something new and exciting, and a whole host of opportunities for these guys and girls”
The introduction of the Amateur Darts Circuit in the UK has been a success with many players taking part in events such as the Championship Tours and the daily weekend events that offer ranking points which now in grassroots darts can set you apart from other players taking part.
The setups using the best of the best equipment and having Winmau on their side has been such a huge difference with a professional look set up available to the up-and-coming darts players, providing an opportunity for those who don’t play in either the PDC or WDF events.
For the ADC Oceania, the response from players has been positive with Ian going on to say: “It’s been positive, I guess the landscape in Australia is slightly different as most players would play with the other organisations also. It’s something new and exciting and we’ve introduced round robin systems on Saturday and Sunday and the players that were unsuccessful are given a chance in a separate competition so they could also win prizes of their own.”
The future for the organisation certainly looks bright with the main aim: “seeing the best players performing at the highest of their ability to prepare them as they start progressing their pathway onto the PDC circuit”.
“For the juniors, we also have JDC Oceania running, opening academies in Australia to nurture the youth coming in and hopefully set up a platform for the future of Australian darts.”
A very successful debut weekend saw the quality as high as it’s ever been with more competitions and events coming up to see who the best of the best is down under and when the World Darts Open comes about, a chance for these players to go up against the best of the UK like Matt Jackson and Adam Atkinson the ADC Number 1 and 2 in the UK.
—–ENDS—–
Images: ADC and ADC Oceania
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