Ryan Searle isn’t one to hide behind excuses. The Devon man, better known as Heavy Metal, has held his hands up and admitted his darts have gone a bit soft of late. What started as another promising season – capped with victory at Players Championship Four – has quickly spiralled into a run of near misses, half-chances, and the odd performance he’d probably like stricken from the record books.
On the ProTour, the world No. 20 has managed just a single quarter-final since that win. On the Euro Tour? Forget it. Last year Searle was a fixture in the later rounds, hitting at least the quarters in eight of thirteen events. This year, after ten attempts, he’s scraped into that stage just once. It’s less Heavy Metal, more shopping centre music.
Searle, though, has been refreshingly blunt about where things have gone wrong. Speaking recently to Oche180, he admitted:
“My form is not that at the minute. I put a lot of focus into the World Matchplay, and I draw Luke Littler first round. He plays like he did against me and goes on to win it. The rest is history – I can’t do much about that.” Translation: Littler ruined my summer.
And if dodgy form and teenage tormentors weren’t enough, Searle has also been candid about his ongoing battle with Dominant Optic Atrophy – an inherited eye condition that causes blurred vision. He admitted the fear of something as serious as a car crash had crossed his mind. That hasn’t stopped him from raising awareness and funds to help find a cure, showing there’s far more to the man than missed doubles.
RYAN SEARLE’s STATS and RECORD: Read-up on Heavy Metal with dartsdatabase.co.uk
So while Heavy Metal may currently be playing out of tune, Searle insists it’s only a matter of time before he’s back in full volume. And if his averages against Littler are anything to go by, the amps are already warming up.
Part of the issue, Searle says, is time spent away from the oche. During the school holidays, he traded practice boards for playgrounds:
“I spent a lot of time with the kids not really throwing many darts. That’s what I chose to do. So I was a bit rusty at the ProTours last week. The first day was really bad. But I know when I find my range, when things start going, I am dangerous.” In other words: family first, darts later – but don’t write him off just yet.
On the big stage, the drought has been noticeable. His last run to a televised quarter-final came at the Winter Gardens back in 2023, which by darts standards is practically a different geological era. But Searle reminded everyone of his quality at the Flanders Darts Trophy. In round two he came from 4-1 down to topple Raymond van Barneveld 6-5, averaging a smooth 100.43 in the process. A round later, he averaged an even better 104.22 and threw in a 144 finish for good measure – only to be dumped out 6-3 by that pesky teenager again. Littler giveth, Littler taketh away.
All that said, there is no hiding the fact that Ryan Searle is a world class darts player. Does he have the best eyesight? Probably not. But on his day, he is a match for anyone on the planet. And in the very near future, we are likely to see proof of that in the form of big shiny trophies.
—–ENDS—–
Images: PDC
