Crack Masterton darts player Greg Moss was in commanding form at the Puma New Zealand Masters tournament staged by the Kapi Mana Darts Association in Porirua last weekend.
Moss, a national representative since 2008, upstaged a quality field including visitors from Australia and Japan in winning the coveted men's singlestitle but, typically, he wasn't exactly waxing lyrical about his success.
"I guess I played pretty well, there weren't too many hiccups along the way," he said. "You are always looking to do better but it was good enough to win and you can't complain about that."
Moss, whose string of major victories last year included the open men's title at the NZ championships, the North Island chartered clubs men's singles and the Sunshine Classic across the Tasman, met Taichi Tabuchi of Japan in a quarter-final match which attracted special attention.
It was the first time Japanese players had participated in the tourney and while they are normally soft tip dart players, Tabuchi's effort illustrated how quickly they adjusted to the steel tip darts. As it happened, however, the best of seven clash between Moss and Tabuchi was a rather one-sided affair with Moss winning 4-0 but his best of nine semifinal with Tony Carmichael was, by contrast, a hard-fought encounter, Moss taking the honours by the narrowest possible margin, 5 to 4.
Up against Moss in the best of 11 final was experienced Wainuiomata player Wayne Carey, a good friend and fellow New Zealand representative who had earlier eliminated the top-ranked Kiwi Peter Hunt 4-3 in an enthralling quarterfinal.
Moss was anticipating a battle royale with Carey and that's exactly what occurred, his 6-4 winning margin basically coming down to a couple of costly mistakes by his opponent.
"Wayne missed a couple of doubles and I got them, that's about all there was in it," Moss said. "It could easily have gone the other way."
Moss will now start preparing for the 2012 national championships, to be held in Rotorua in August, and is aiming to continue his international career by being part of the New Zealand team which contests the Asia Pacific Cup tournament in October.
