Every Friday, Caolán Conroy provides his take on at least three different sporting developments across the UK and Ireland. This week looks at the Darts at Ally Pally, Jonathan Rea’s dream year and shares his Ulster-born soccer team of the week.

 

Mixed fortunes for the Irish at Ally Pally

After week one of the PDC World Darts Championship, only one of the four Irish players that qualified for the tournament has made it through to the second round. That man is Daryl Gurney, who defeated Ronny Heybrechts 3-1 on Monday night.

Number four seed Gurney raced into a 2-0 lead, before Heybrechts improved to make it 2-1. In the fourth set Gurney took out an amazing 170 to win the first leg and comfortably finished off Heybrechts from there.

The Derry man will now play Scotland’s John Henderson in the second round. Gurney is sixth favourite to win the title, and currently 35/1 in some bookmakers (impressive odds), with the Netherlands’ Michael Van Gerwen a heavy favourite.

There wasn’t such good news for Fermanagh’s Brendan Dolan and other Irish players Willie O’Connor and Steve Lennon, however. Dolan was beaten 3-1 on Sunday night by Robert Thornton. Dolan ‘The History Maker’ will be disappointed that after levelling the game up at 1-1 he let Thornton dominate thereafter.

Now that I’ve finished work for Christmas I fully intend to spend the next couple of weeks with my feet up enjoying the spectacle from Ally Pally. Sky Sports’ current tag line is that ‘Christmas is for Football’, but I have to agree with one of my good mates who says ‘Christmas is for the Darts’. Hopefully we’ll watch Daryl Gurney go all the way this year.

 

2017 – The year of Jonathan Rea

On Sunday night, local Superbike world champion, Jonathan Rea, was pipped to the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award by Mo Farah. Rea’s second place was a shock for most people including himself, but it was richly deserved after a hugely successful year for the Antrim man. Farah finished around 3,000 votes ahead of Rea, who beat Para-athlete Jonnie Peacock into third place. Like many others I’ve enjoyed reading up on Rea before and since Sunday night’s awards. BBC NI aired a documentary on Monday night that gave viewers access to the life of the rider and his family. I haven’t had a chance to view it just yet, but have heard great reviews.

2018 promises to be a huge year for Rea, set to return to action in February when the Superbike World Championship sparks back into action. There have been rumours that Rea was due to make a move to the more glamorous and high-profile MotoGP this year, however, according to the man himself you can expect to see him competing on the world Superbike stage for the foreseeable future. Let’s watch this space.

 

Ulster-born XI – soccer team of the Week

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Conrad Logan – Kept a clean sheet against Yeovil last weekend.

Chris Baird – Derby County continue their rise and as they won 2-0 against Aston Villa last weekend.

Levi Ives – Scored the only goal of game as Cliftonville beat Glentoran.

Marc Wilson – Sunderland finally recorded a home win after 364 days, which was topped off by a clean sheet against Fulham.

Michael Smith – Hearts shocked everyone by thrashing Celtic 4-0 on Sunday to end their 69-game unbeaten run.

Darron Gibson – Has been a firm favourite of Chris Coleman’s since he took over as manager. Like Marc Wilson he repaid his manager as the Black Cats won at home for first time in a year.

Corry Evans – Blackburn are flying and moved into third in League One with their sixth league win in a row.

Ian Parkhill – Scored in Coleraine’s victory last weekend as they maintained their six-point lead at the top of the Irish League.

Matthew Snoddy – Scored Crusaders’ first goal in a seven-goal thriller against high-flying Glenavon.

Shay McCartan – After coming off the bench, was influential as Bradford left it late to maintain their winning run.

Kyle Lafferty – Great performance and goal for Hearts as they ended Celtic’s unbeaten domestic run.