We have lucky pants, nail chewing sportsmen and "The Count(ing)" is back!

Darts Blog 14 - BDO Darts World Championship -

Posted: 06.01.11 in Tournament Analysis Blog category

We have lucky pants, nail chewing sportsmen and "The Count(ing)" is back!

Deano - You`re Lucky, Lucky, Lucky, Lucky!

Dean Winstanley won through to the quarter-finals of the BDO World Championship at Lakeside last night. His counting was suspect (more of that later) but that didn`t matter, he could not possibly lose as he had his lucky pants on. A note to the commentators here, perhaps there was arguably a little too much time spent discussing the potential need for cleaning the “winning boxers” after the previous match. Please follow the golden rule when discussing dart players underwear, keep it brief.

Sportsmen with superstitions or bizarre rituals are not confined to darts of course. In Matthew Syed`s excellent book Bounce he discusses some of them: there is a baseball player who slept with his bat (not one for dart players to mimic with their darts), David Campase always sat next to the bus driver on away trips, Jack Russell had his smelly pads and a hat that was falling apart and my favourite, a baseball pitcher who bit the top of his nail off before a game and carried it around in his mouth for the entire match.

Those rituals make just having lucky pants seem quite dull!

Does It All Add Up?

Dean Winstanley is a good dart player. From a `professional` point of view I like him. He appears to look after himself, his power scoring and finishing is good and his body language on stage demands that his opponent gives hm respect. He also gives off the impression of being confident, so far so good. If you add all those attributes together it equals a top dart player.

I was reminded of “Deano” again this morning whilst watching the Australian openers become embroiled in a catastrophic run-out. Two brilliant cricketers who were not focusing on perhaps an attribute that is easily forgotten in professional cricket, the skill of running between the wickets. Why did it remind me of Dean Winstanley? Because his counting, which then led to “stop-start” finishing is perhaps an attribute or skill that he has neglected?

He admitted that it was a problem- that is a great start in correcting any potential flaw in your armoury. It may of course be that underneath the confident veneer he was actually nervous and was concerned about making an error with his counting live on BBC. Whatever the reason he needs to follow the advice of Martin Adams and of course we would back up Wolfie 100% with his advice. He needs to practice his finishes and the best route for him, then he needs to practice some more. If he does this he can take his game to a new level, you can count on that!

Author: Paul Gillings ( paul@dartsperformancecentre.com )

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