Fair play – Poullain awarded his crown
PAUL POULLAIN has received confirmation of his Western Individual League title, despite competitive darts being out of action for nearly two months.
League organiser Caroline La Touche decided that, given the current coronavirus situation, holding the remaining fixtures would be unfeasible, and hence they have decided to annul all results after the first half of the season.
The erasure of multiple match weeks means that Poullain, in perhaps the best form of his career, has finally earned his reward for a near-unbeaten season.
In fact, the top three has thankfully remained unaltered with the reduction from 20 counting matches to 13.
Poullain led from the front and won 12 matches yet in the tight standings. Terry King took runner-up on 11 wins and Ken Waters third with 10.
‘[Paul] had a really good season this year,’ said La Touche.
‘He had some close games – like against Ken, the result was that he beat Ken 6-5.
‘Close results against the top two but he had some big, big wins from others.’
Poullain and King are joint-top of the standings for 180s, with eight from 13 matches, while Waters demonstrated his knack for hitting 100+s with a huge haul of 110.
La Touche confirmed that the decision was made in the interest of fairness, so that the results reflected every player playing each other once, rather than waiting for another six match weeks to be played.
In Division Two, Steve Woods has sealed the title by a rather convincing margin from Chris Hamon.
Woods’ victory comes as no surprise, for he had remained unbeaten until late in the season.
