'Tremendous' day for Irish darts in World Cup

The first day of action in the WDF Darts World Cup 2025 was a tremendous day for the Irish teams, reports Derek Courtney of The Spout, from Seoul, South Korea.

The men's team in the Round Robin group lost a very high-quality match, 9-7, to Holland in their opening game, but they returned very strongly to beat Ukraine, 9-3, Lichtenstein, 9-0, the Faroe Islands, 9-3, and Norway, 9-1, to qualify for the knockout stages later in the week. All the lads on the men's team gave an excellent performance. 

The women's team played their Doubles competition today, a straight knockout event. Katie and Robyn won their first match, as did Aoife and Denise. Both pairs got to the last 16. Unfortunately, Kate and Robyn were very unlucky to lose to England in the last 16 in a high-quality match. Aoife and Denise won through the last 16 and were unfortunate to lose in the final eight. But it was a great performance by the four women.

In the girls' singles, Zoe played tremendously well today and won all her group games to top the group. Rachel won two of the three games and came out second in the group. Unfortunately, although both girls played really well, they were beaten in the last 16 of the knockout competition, but they could both hold their heads up very high. They were absolutely tremendous. 

The highlighter of the day had to go to Jack and Aidan in the youth pairs. They won their group without dropping a leg, doing all the matches 3-0, playing tremendous stuff. In the quarter finals, they came up against a powerful Australia team, and they beat them 4-1, which brought them into the semi-finals. Jack and Aidan then played the darts of their lives to beat South Africa 4-1 and progressed to Friday's final. That final will go live on YouTube at 9.30 Irish time on Friday, so it should be a great final. The two lads were absolutely brilliant. 

There has to be a special mention here as well for the managers. Paddy Cullen, the manager of the youths, stood by them all day, not just for Jack and Aidan, but also for Rachel and Zoe. The other captains, Kevin and Chris, were fantastic with their teams. I've never seen such a united team in all the times I've been involved in sport. 

There are a lot more darts to be played between now and Thursday; my next update will be tomorrow.

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