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12 September 2011
A Breaffy welcome for world’s best throwers
The World Cup of darts is coming to Mayo. The huge WDF tournament will bring national teams from 39 countries to the Breaffy House Resort for the singles, team and doubles championships from September 20 to 24.
This is the first time the event will be held in Ireland in its 34-year history and it’s a major coup for the impressive Breaffy venue to have attracted such a prestigious tournament.
Well-known names featured in the list of former winners are Raymond Van Barneveld, Martin Adams, Roland Scholton, John Lowe, Eric Bristow and Leighton Rees.
There will be added local interest due to the fact that the Irish team will be captained by Roundfort’s Martin Heneghan. The 19-year-old former Western People Sports Star has represented his country many times but playing in the World Cup in his own county will be a huge honour and a great boost for the sport in Mayo.
Ireland have been grouped with Iceland, Lithuania, Bahamas, and Luxembourg for the men’s team events.
Sligo’s Sean McGowan is another member of the Irish squad. The man who lives in Sligo town has 74 international caps and is looking forward to showing what he’s capable of in Breaffy.
Sean’s wife, Ann, will be the manager of the Womens and Youths teams at the Breaffy event, and among the younger Irish players competing will be Emma Smith, a first year student at Glenamaddy Community School. The 13-year-old is orginally from London and made her debut for Ireland in the Europe Cup in Scotland last July. Emma is the daughter of Caroline Breen and Noel Smith. Caroline is an Irish International also, narrowly missing out on the women’s team for the World Cup, having finished third in the Irish rankings.
The Irish National Darts Organisation, as hosts of the Breaffy extravaganza, are to take the opportunity to honour the 1989 Irish men’s team who produced a highly impressive display at the World Cup in Toronto and came home with the bronze medals. Members of the team were Jack McKenna (Kildare), Tony O’Neill (Dublin) Johnny Dunne (Laois) and Mick Hogg (Westmeath).
In that memorable tourament, Jack McKenna made it all the way to the final, only to lose out to the legendary Eric Bristow. In the doubles, Tony O’Neill and Mick Hogg reached the semi-final.
From a Mayo point of view, this team is very interesting, as Tony O’Neill has since moved to The Neale in South Mayo, and is now a member of the Mayo senior team.
Mayo TV and Sky are covering the event and the main sponsors are Breaffy House Resort, Herman Stein --Bull’s Dartboards, Fáilte Ireland, Castlebar Town Council and Visit Castlebar
The schedule of events are not yet confirmed, but it’s expected that the opening ceremony will take place on Tuesday, September 20, with action in the men’s team, women’s pairs and girls singles events getting underway the following day.
On Thursday, it’s expected that the men’s singles, women’s pairs and boys singles will begin. Men’s pairs, women’s singles, youths mixed pairs and the men’s team events will take place on Friday.
On Saturday, the finals of the girls singles, boys singles, women’s pairs, men’s pairs, youths pairs and women’s singles competitions will bring huge crowds to Breaffy. On Sunday, the final day of the tournament, the men’s singles and the men’s team finals will be held before the presentation of trophies and a farewell banquet. It promises to be a wonderful event and one that’s sure to attract large crowds to the impressive venue.
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