Former finalists Republic of Ireland came out on top in a thrilling contest against Gibraltar to reach the second round of the World Cup of Darts with a perfect record.<\/p>\n
William O’Connor and Mickey Mansell only needed two legs to secure their passage to the knockout stages but went behind when Gibraltar broke their throw immediately.<\/p>\n
Ireland hit back in the next to level before the third leg started with nine perfect darts from both teams, with O\u2019Connor eventually pinning double six to take a 2-1 lead.<\/p>\n
The Frankfurt crowd went into raptures when Craig Galliano checked out 158 to draw Gibraltar level once more, but Ireland wrapped up the next two legs for a 100% record.<\/p>\n
They will face Poland, who also advanced with a 100% following their victory against Switzerland.<\/p>\n
Wales only needed two legs to progress and sealed their spot in the last 16 with a 4-1 success against Thailand. United States stand in their way for a place in the quarter-finals after beating Canada in their Group G decider.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, James Walklin declared Trinidad and Tobago’s first win at the competition as the “best experience of my life” \u2013 even better than his wedding.<\/p>\n
The debutants left Frankfurt on a high following their final-leg decider against Latvia, narrowly missing out on a place in the last 16 on leg difference.<\/p>\n
The Caribbean nation looked set to suffer successive Group J defeats when Latvia broke in the fifth leg, but Walklin and partner Joshua Balfour took the final two legs to get themselves on the board.<\/p>\n
Despite exiting the competition, Walklin was willing to risk the wrath of his wife after his country\u2019s maiden triumph.<\/p>\n
“If you don\u2019t get butterflies in your stomach for any endeavour in life then it\u2019s not worth doing,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It was the \u2013 I\u2019m going to upset my wife now \u2013 best experience of my life. I have no children. The best experience of my life.<\/p>\n
“Yeah it was better than my wedding. It was fantastic.”<\/p>\n
Germany produced another dominant display with a 4-2 triumph over New Zealand and Cristo Reyes averaged 104.33 as Spain, considered Group K outsiders, progressed with a 4-1 hammering of Japan in their final fixture \u2013 they will take on the number one seeds England in the last 16.<\/p>\n
Defending champions Northern Ireland were drawn against Belgium, who only advanced by virtue of leg difference following Slovenia\u2019s 4-2 triumph against Hong Kong.<\/p>\n
Fellow top-four seeds the Netherlands and Scotland face Sweden and Norway, respectively, and France\u2019s reward for coming from 3-1 down in their shoot-out against Austria and snatch a place in the next round against Latvia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former finalists Republic of Ireland came out on top in a thrilling contest against Gibraltar to reach the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-497016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497016","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=497016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}