Monday 22 December 2014 16:40, UK
Wayne Mardle has questioned the quality of the boards at the World Darts Championship after Dave Chisnall’s bizarre first-round win over Ryan De Vreede.
The St Helens man completed a 3-0 win over De Vreede, but became increasingly frustrated when darts regularly fell off the board at Alexandra Palace.
Amid farcical scenes, Chisnall celebrated a 180 only to see his arrow drop to the stage floor, and De Vreede’s darts also bounced out, which prompted criticism from Mardle.
The Sky Sports pundit believes the eighth seed should have prepared his new darts, but also raised concerns about the standard of the boards.
“Well he said he’s changed his darts and maybe he should have roughed the points up,” said Mardle. “But I just found it a bit of a coincidence that it was happening to Ryan as well. There were too many for me, too many points on the board.
“They are falling out slowly. The points could have been too smooth like Dave said, but for it to happen to Ryan as well - for me it was too much of a coincidence.
“The quality of the boards in my opinion is not good enough anyway and they’ve been poor for a while. It’s got to be addressed. But Dave did say that maybe he should have roughed his points up.
“The trouble is with the dartboards, you don’t know until you start playing, and you don’t know until you start throwing - and that’s what happened today. With the board and the points it’s a recipe for disaster.”
Chisnall racked up six straight legs after dropping the opener, but appeared to lose his focus when his darts started to drop.
“That’s going to happen, that’s human nature,” said Mardle.
“When something is not quite sticking, you’re going to try to throw them firmer. With that, your shoulder comes into play and you kind of lose your action. You starting going low and you also start to be inaccurate.
“That’s why up until that point, Dave was averaging 94, 95, went down to 86 and started missing a few doubles because you try too hard.”
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