Riley’s, Wigan was the host venue for the first quarterly final of the Redtooth Darts tournament. Play started promptly at 2.00pm with the round-robin group stages over the best of five legs.
Two former winners, Anton Hastings and Martin Copperwaite were both in the field again looking to qualify for this year’s final. The standout game in the group stages was between Martin and Stuart Brears who was making his debut at the event. Martin eventually edged a see-saw match winning 3-2.
The quarter finalists all qualified for the National Final to be held towards the end of this year.
The quarter final results were as follows;
- Liam Gollop (Riley’s Wigan) 4 v 2 Ben Guy (Pheasant, Batley)
- Stuart Brear (Butcher’s Arms, Eckington) 3 v 4 Martin Copperwaite (Three Horses, Keighley)
- Daniel Roberts (Butcher’s Arms) 1 v 4 Sean Johnson (Griffin, Carlisle)
- Mike Atkins (Riley’s) 1 v 4 Anton Hastings (Riley’s)
After going through the group stages impressively undefeated the stand-out semi-final saw Sean taking on Anton in what proved to be a high class battle with Sean eventually coming out on top with a 4-3 victory.
In the other semi-final Liam took full advantage of an erratic performance from Martin running out a 4-0 winner.
Cumbria county player, Sean, looked to be on top form throughout the day however the final was a real thriller. Liam raced into a 2-0 lead with a barrage of high scores and some excellent finishing, Sean however fought back to level at 2-2 only for Liam to regain the advantage by winning the next two legs. Sean showed real grit and fought back to level the scores at 4-4 before rounding off a great day by clinching the last leg for a 5-4 victory.
