Published: Wednesday, 3rd February, 2010 3:48pm

'A' team just too strong in darts derby

by Jim Stark

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In the men's Fife Darts Super League last week, with Cowdenbeath having the bye, those behind them had the chance to benefit from them being idle and move ahead.

East Fife failed to take advantage of this in their match with Glenrothes as they went 3-1 up but Glenrothes fought back to 3-3 before the Methil men went ahead in the seventh requiring the last set to win the match.

But Glenrothes player Rab Shaw won it to make the result 4-4.

In the Railway Tavern the Lochgelly derby was a tense affair and fans saw a mixture of some great darts as well as quality finishing from both sets of players.

In the first leg Stuart McGaulley opened the match by checking 74 for an 18-darter which Craig Mayne followed up with a 95 finish to level. The next two legs went with the darts and Stuart won the deciding leg with another 18 darter to take the first set with 21.11.

The second set was between Kevin O'Hagan and Kevin Feeley and with the first three legs again going with the throw,

Kevin 'O' took the opportunity to level the match with a 76 outshot in the fourth for a 23.86 average.

Following the two Kevin's, then it was the two Colin's up next with Colin Morgan for the B team and Colin Feeley for the A team.

In the first leg Colin Feeley started steadily and rattled off three ton plus scores to take the leg and finished in 16 darts but failed to keep his lead as Mogsy drew level and then went 2-1 up. In the fourth leg he had darts at double 8 to win the leg but a 180 helped set Coco up for a 17 dart leg to square the set before producing another 17-darter in the deciding leg for a 26.78 average to put the A team 2-1 up.

In the next two sets, the A team went 3-1 and 4-1 ahead with 3-0 wins coming from Paddy Reilly (21.47) against Craig Abercrombie and Pete Naughton (21.78) against Paul Whyte before Gordon Donnelly (20.88) ensured victory for the A team with a 3-0 win against Brian Penman.

Next up was the match everyone was looking forward to as Math Wilson met Alan Small. Math began with two 140's but Alan's power scoring spurred him on to take double ten out in the first leg for a 17 darter.

This seemed to upset Mathy as he stormed through the second leg and set up a 170 finish. As his first dart went in the treble twenty, he followed it with a second to set up the bull and as he readied himself for the maximum checkout, the room fell deadly silent. Seconds later it erupted with cheers as there was a rapturous round of applause as Mathy's final dart went smack bang in the middle of the bull.

Once everybody had settled down the darts resumed and Mathy continued his form with a 106 checkout after Alan missed an effort at double two and in the fourth leg he repeated the effort with another 106 outshot for a 15 dart leg and the highest average of the night with 26.94.

In the last set James Scougall (23.12) won 3-0 with the help of 16 and 17 dart games in the second and third legs against Alan Brand to make the final score 6-2 for the A team.

There was one reserve leg played which B team captain Willie Glen won 3-1 against George Lambert.

In the tie between the two Dunfermline teams, the A team edged a 5-3 victory over their B team.

The results mean that Lochgelly A sit proudly on top of the league table at the halfway mark but are only one point ahead of East Fife and the two meet each other in the next round. League positions; 1st Lochgelly A with 40pts, 2nd East Fife (39), 3rd Cowdenbeath (36), 4th Glenrothes (34), 5th Dunfermline A (28), 6th Dunfermline B (17), 7th Lochgelly B (16). The next round will be played on 11th February.