It may have been the weather or something in the water, but last Tuesday certainly brought joy and surprise to some players.
While there were some surprise results, without question the match of the week was that between hosts Cossy Done & Dusted and Roseland Tavern.
The visitors, by taking the honours 8-7 on the night, stopped Done & Dusted from triplicating perfect grading-round gold.
Undefeated since March 29, 2016, Done & Dusted have always held the mantle of “Team Most Wanted” in the Gisborne Club Darts Association Tuesday night competition.
The individual rankings speak loads, with all six players ranked between first and 23rd out of the 130 GCDA membership.
In the mix were New Zealand Darts Council No.2-ranked woman Sha Hohipa and Gisborne’s No.1-ranked, nine-darting Matt Reedy (nine-darter not executed in this competition).
The Roseland had just come off a convincing 10-5 win against last week’s second-placed 2NZ Bullz. This obviously prepared them well for this clash.
Their point-pairing of Nigel Higham and Winston Wanoa paved the way by winning two games, firstly against Matt Reedy and Sha Hohipa, and then against Wayne Tamihana and Brian Leach.
After losing 2-0 to Done & Dusted’s youthful duo, cousins Marcus Leach and Lee Tamihana, Roseland’s mid-pairing of Mike Jones and Johnny Kingsbeer also took a brace, again against Reedy and Hohipa then Wayne Tamihana and Brian Leach.
Anchor-pair Wayne and Kevin Morrell clinched a win to make it five.
For Cossy, the mid-pairing of Marcus Leach and Lee Tamihana proved unbeatable, taking all three games. An out-of-sorts Reedy and Hohipa could manage only a lone victory to make it four.
In the singles, Matt Reedy began strongly for the home side with a 2-0 win against Higham — 5-5. Winston Wanoa put Roseland back in front with a 2-1 defeat of Sha Hohipa. Mr Consistent, Mike Jones, followed suit with a 2-0 win against the high-scoring Marcus Leach.
This raised the bar for the Cossy lower order. They needed to win the last three singles.
And try they did. Lee Tamihana beat John Kingsbeer 2-0, then Lee’s dad Wayne Tamihana had a 2-0 win against Wayne Morrell.
This left anchors Brian Leach and Kevin Morrell to decide the match.
Nothing like it — no pressure!
They slugged it out down to the wire, with the third-leg decider going to Kevin Morrell.
In an exclusive after-match interview, Roseland’s Winston Wanoa, a man of action and few words, summarised it perfectly: “We just hit our doubles first.”