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Apylee Keeps a-Knocking But Can’t Get In

Now the cathartic English four-yearly taste of failure, known by other countries as the Football World Cup, is over, the inquest into the latest brave but ultimately futile foray into International competition can begin.

Some mutter about Rooney’s trespassing onto ‘privates’ property, others about Ronaldo’s incredible problem with balance, but most are wondering about the suave Swede’s squad selection. Specifically they ask why he went to Germany with just four strikers; they being the one with a broken foot, the one recovering from a broken foot, the team mascot & a hatstand.

No doubt about it, team selection for big events is a difficult task and selecting England darts teams is no less tricky considering the huge pool of talent available. Especially for a Ladies team for which only two can be selected.

The letters page of Darts World was peppered with views on the subject a few months ago regarding the exclusion of one exceptional lady player, and now Apylee Jones is causing the panel further headaches with some powerful performances. Unfortunately, Apylee has narrowly failed to make the Europe Cup team again despite a determined effort which has seen her clear hurdle after hurdle placed in front of her.

Apylee missed out on the last Europe Cup as her England performances weren’t overly impressive, but put that right in a fine display at the Home Internationals, winning both her matches including one Lady of the Match award. However, a call up for the World Cup didn’t materialise, the places instead going to the top 2 in the Inter-County averages.

This just spurred Apylee on further and this season, she triumphed in the Gold Cup singles, made the Semi Finals in the Masters & topped it all by finishing runner-up to Trina Gulliver in the BICC averages, having won all nine of her appearances & taking EIGHT Lady of the Match awards in the process. This placed the Surrey player firmly in the frame for Europe Cup selection, but again she was denied with the second place this time being decided on World Ranking points instead.

As if to emphasize her abilities, Apylee then beat both of the selected team members in the ‘best of three 501’ discipline of the Pentathlon to help herself to a creditable 4th place.

Knowing the determination of the Kingston School Transport driver, I’m sure she will redouble her efforts to gain that elusive place but unfortunately, work commitments coupled with the huge cost of following the circuit mean that earning the required rankings points (if that is the current criteria) will be impossible without a very generous sponsor!

As far as Surrey goes, we’ve always recognised Apylee’s talent & are very proud of her commitment to the county. We shall just have to hope that her constant knocking on the England door will result one day in it flying open, and a guy in a maroon blazer proffering an invite to one of the ‘Major’ International events. Till then, let’s hope she keeps providing more headaches for the selection committee by continuing her excellent service for Surrey.

It’s Good To Talk

England selection matters have only been mentioned in this column once before and resulted in an angry phone tirade from a Selection Committee member stating that the player concerned wasn’t eligible as he hadn’t played 66% of County matches (He’d only played 6 out of 9 … you do the maths). Unfortunately, it was hard to engage in meaningful discussion as I was driving at 60mph on the A217 in Banstead at the time. Hopefully, it won’t happen again, but should anyone feel the need, please call out of office hours … some of us have work to do.

Some Bottle at Bud

Surrey based players enjoyed a fair amount of success at the recent Budweiser UK Open & contributed fully to what is becoming a very popular event on the PDC circuit.

Jimmy Mann, Jason Roberts & Dave Askew all successfully negotiated the 2nd Round, with 8-4, 8-4 & 8-0 victories respectively. They were joined in the next round by Lionel Sams, who didn’t benefit greatly with the draw & went out to Ronnie Baxter 8-3. Roberts also bowed out at this stage, but only after a superb 8-7 battle with eventual Semi-Finalist Alan Tabern. Dave Askew progressed by beating former World Finalist Mark Dudbridge 8-3 whilst Jimmy Mann also took a big scalp in overcoming the experienced battler Colin Monk 8-2.

Unfortunately, both left the Competition in the last 32 but what a way to go! Both matches were televised as Jimmy went down 11-4 to Raymond van Barneveld under a barrage of 180s, whilst Dave drew the other supernova in the PDC firmament, Phil Taylor, who defeated the Redhill man 11-3.

Solid performances on the whole from our representatives, and the general view is that they thoroughly enjoyed the experience … of meeting Helen Chamberlain.

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