The Hendersons are well and truly back to winning ways after a convincing win over highflying Bombardier at the Royal on Tuesday. In what must surely be the upset of the season and in the midst of a full scale darts tournament at the RVH Social Club, the Hendos got straight to the point to see off their east Belfast opponents by 4 to 1. Indeed at one point darts fan CJ Murphy with divided loyalties was tempted to take up the arrows as well as the while pieces, but he settled for the latter in his board 4 clash with Eric Bookless. After some uncharacteristic patchy form from a wary Pearse O’Brien, the Hendos captain dismissed Pearse’s hopes of playing board 4 with the utmost faith that he would deliver against Bombardier stalwart Stewart McConaghy.
The match started with a typically nonchalant performance of Richard Kaczarowski seeing off Paul McNaughton on board 2 early doors, followed by an out of sorts Brendan O’Neill throwing away a winning position, allowing Mark Newman to pinch a win to equalise on board 1.
Eric Bookless got a taste of Cathal Murphy’s Fried Liver Attack on board 4 and it was clear that this tactic threw Eric out of “book” after 5.Ng5 followed by 6.Nxf7. Indeed Eric had to play the remainder of the game “bookless”, but nevertheless he managed to stifle Murphy’s early aggression with accurate defending (see game – bloggers comments welcome) and had Murphy under severe pressure, threatening mate on move 22. However a bad mistake with 27…Rf4 allowed Cathal to take rook with Knight which preceded a Bookless resignation giving the Hendersons a 2-1 lead.
Things looked good for a result for the Hendersons and Pearse O’Brien managed to destroy Stewart McConaghy’s Stonewall Attack “brick by brick” pulling off an impressive victory to give the Hendos a winning score at 3-1. But the icing on the cake came when Philip Morrison arrived under the radar yet again to beat old rival Billy McKittrick. There was no “horsing around” this time from Phil as he stole in to force resignation, a tempo ahead of Bill who couldn’t quite deliver his own threatened mate, to give the Hendersons their third victory in their first full year as a separate team.
| RVH HENDERSONS | vs | BOMBARDIER |
| Brendan O’Neil | 0-1 | Mark Newman |
| Ryszard Kaczarowski | 1-0 | Paul McNaughten |
| Pearse O’Brien | 1-0 | Stewart McConaghy |
| Cathal Murphy | 1-0 | Eric Bookless |
| Philip Morrison | 1-0 | Bill McKittrick |
| Total | 4-1 | |
| +Bonus | 6-1 | |
It wasn’t clear whether it was green beer, or maybe just water being supped after the victory, but in the packed social club, the remaining Murphy, Morrison and O’Brien triumvirate took the applause from their fellow RVH darts players in full anticipation of an enjoyable St Patrick’s holiday.
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