William O’Connor described the bias of the seeding system at the 2026 BetVictor World Cup as “absolutely rubbish” after the Republic of Ireland started their campaign with victory.<\/p>\n
The four highest ranked countries based on their individual PDC world ranking advance straight into the second round, with England, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland and Scotland occupying those slots.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connor, a former finalist in this competition in 2019, partnered Mickey Mansell in Ireland\u2019s Group D opener against Singapore and prevailed 4-1 to put themselves in pole position of progressing in Frankfurt.<\/p>\n
However, the 39-year-old believes all the teams should be on a level playing field for the global event.<\/p>\n
“In a short format, first to four (legs), you could pick two guys out of the pub and could turn around and win this,” O\u2019Connor said.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m not just saying it, but it\u2019s a good job that those boys that are seeded are into the second round because I don\u2019t think the four (teams) would come through.<\/p>\n
“Put those boys into the same round as us. I think everyone in the World Cup should be in the same draw.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s the World Cup, every single person in the world should be in the same draw. England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, I don\u2019t care who they are.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s ridiculous (that they enter in the) second round of the World Cup. I don\u2019t agree with that. I think it\u2019s absolutely rubbish.<\/p>\n
“Put those boys into the same round as us and see how they do under pressure, because we were under serious pressure today.”<\/p>\n
Singapore moved ahead thanks to Phuay Wei Tan\u2019s brilliant 170 checkout before eighth seeds Ireland produced in the pressure moments, including O\u2019Connor\u2019s 122 finish for a 3-1 lead, to seal an opening win.<\/p>\n
Mansell said: “Three teams in a group and the priority\u2019s winning, how it happens or how you do it, it\u2019s just about winning. It was a priority to win today and give ourselves more breathing ground.”<\/p>\n
Two-time winners Wales also opened their account with a 4-1 triumph against Lithuania in their Group C clash.<\/p>\n
Nick Kenny, who was making his debut alongside world number five Jonny Clayton, said: “It was mint, and to do it with Jonny was even better.<\/p>\n
“I thought I played alright, it was solid, but there\u2019s more to come from us, definitely.”<\/p>\n
Hosts Germany began their campaign with a 4-0 demolition of the Philippines, while Hong Kong pulled off the major shock of the opening night with a 4-2 success against sixth seeds Belgium.<\/p>\n
Japan came back from 2-0 down to edge a final-leg decider against Croatia, with Norway and the United States also winning by the same scoreline against Finland and Australia respectively.<\/p>\n
Adam Gawlas hit three maximums as he guided Czechia to a 4-0 whitewash over India, Latvia and Sweden were both 4-2 winners against Italy and South Africa, while Poland eased to a 4-1 triumph over Portugal as did Austria against China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"William O’Connor described the bias of the seeding system at the 2026 BetVictor World Cup as “absolutely rubbish”…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-495237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}