for 84 it was curtains as Barney broke and then started off leg six with a max to record a 4-2 triumph.
It wasn’t to be for the Belgians as last year’s runners-up rued their missed opportunity of breaking in leg three and went down to a disappointing 4-nil scoreline.
The Wizardry of Simon Whitlock proved too much for Mark Webster in the opening game of a mouth-watering clash between the Australians and the Welsh as the ‘beard to be feared’ racked up finishes of 76, 100 and 52 in legs three, four and five, to give him and his partner Paul Nicholson the early initiative. But the adopted Aussie, come Geordie, failed to complete the job thanks to a typically stubborn effort by Burnett whose two 180’s enabled him to force the tie into a winner takes all doubles shootout.
It went the way of the Australians and they forced their way into the semis in some style, failing to drop a single leg with some nerveless finishing from both players in a 4-0 rout.
That meant if England could overthrow the South Africans they would set-up a meeting with Australia in a repeat of the two teams infamous tungsten tussle at the 2012 event when Lewis and Taylor beat their fierce rivals in a sudden-death leg.
If Phil Taylor hadn’t have had the advantage of throwing first in his match against Devon Petersen then their singles game could have been an entirely different story as a remarkable seven breaks of throw were achieved enabling the 16x World Champ to snatch England’s first point of the tie. A trademark Taylor finish of 167, the highest outshot of the entire tournament, was a particular high point in a real see-saw battle which ended 4-3.
Though far from firing and fluent, his partner Adrian Lewis kept his composure at two legs a piece versus Graham Filby by breaking in
leg five and hitting a
crowd-pleasing 107
to guarantee team Stoke the
full tally of points
and set-up that
mouth-watering
clash against the old enemy.
SEMI FINALS
Two successive singles match defeats for Michael van Gerwen seemed unthinkable but with Brendan Dolan in such imperious form it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility and so it proved as the History Maker added Mighty Mike to his growing list of World Cup scalps.
A 12-darter in leg one, followed by an early break in leg two, showed that Brendan meant business, only for MVG to hit straight back with a 13-darter of his own.
With the scores tied at 2-2 it was do or die for both players and three missed darts at double for Dolan seemingly spelled curtains for his chances. But Michael failed to exploit his window of opportunity and it was fatal as an eventual 4-2 success for Dolan put Northern Ireland within one point of the grand finale.