Northern Ireland’s World Cup of Darts defence is still alive, but Josh Rock and Daryl Gurney were made to work desperately hard before escaping Belgium in a last-leg thriller. The defending champions came through 8-7 in Frankfurt, averaging 94.21 to Belgium’s 86.83, after Mike De Decker and Dimitri Van den Bergh had opened up leads of 4-1 and 5-2. Gurney eventually took out 102 in the deciding leg to send Northern Ireland into a quarter-final against Latvia.
Rock admitted Belgium had found a level that had not fully appeared in the group stage. “I do not think we expected them to play as well as they did, because obviously in the group stages they were not up to scratch with the way we know they can play,” Rock told Dartsnews.com. “They are both major champions and they were not clicking, but they did what they did in the end.” Northern Ireland were in trouble at the break. Rock’s answer was simple: “We were under the break 5-2 down, but we still never give up. That is why we are sitting here now.”
Belgium had control of the scoreboard for most of the first half of the match. De Decker took out 77 for 4-1, helped move Belgium 5-2 clear, and later restored a two-leg advantage at 6-4 after Rock missed double 16 to level. Northern Ireland kept dragging themselves back. Gurney punished three missed darts from Van den Bergh for 5-4, Rock finished 34 for 6-5, and Gurney forced the deciding leg on double four after Belgium had gone 7-6 up. Even at 5-2 down, Gurney did not feel the match had moved beyond them. “Honestly, I still thought we were the better team,” he said. “Marginally, but all we had to do was take out that one dart at a double. If we could do that, I felt like we could get back into the game, because I felt like we were a dart ahead.”
Gurney felt Northern Ireland needed the pressure of the stage after waiting for their campaign to begin. “I just feel like in the back room, we were a bit complacent,” he said. “Not like we were going to win, but we could not wait to get on the stage, play and feel the pressure, rather than sitting four nights in the back.” At 5-2 down, the conversation changed. “When it was 5-2 down at the break, Josh just said to me: now we have to start playing darts,” Gurney continued. “Basically, that is what we started doing. We stopped giving them the opportunities that we did in the first half of the game. When we did get the opportunities, we took them, and that is what got us back into the game.”
Northern Ireland now have Latvia between them and another World Cup semi-final. Their defence remains alive, but only after Belgium forced the champions into their first major scare of the weekend.
