The B Irish National Darts Organisation's Intercounties affectionally known as the All Irelands, took place recently in The Knightsbrook Hotel, Trim with over 20 county teams competing.
The group stages took place on the Saturday with Galway coming out of the group in second place after two wins against Mayo 8-5 and Kilkenny 8-5 and a narrow loss to Carlow.
Our first game on Sunday all knockouts from here on in was against Cork at 11am in a preliminary round and we came out convincing winners on a scoreline of 7-3 with our young debutant Ben Byrne of Tuam hitting the winning double.
We then faced a good Dublin team in the last 8 and we produced some quality darts to win on a scoreline of 7-4. And so on to the semi-finals. In the semi-finals we had our toughest test all weekend against a serious Wicklow team.
It went 6 games all with none other than the Tuam native & darts personality DANGER picked as the anchor man. All our doubts before the last game decider were put to rest when DANGER reassured us "what are ye worrying about lads, it's in the bag".
And in the bag, it was surely, with DANGER winning 2-0 and Wicklow defeated on a scoreline of 7-6. So on to the AIl-Ireland final. In the final we faced Meath. Before the final commenced, an unnamed Galway man was hiding in a bush at the back of the hotel having a smoke when he overheard a few Meath lads say, we will win this, we will beat Galway.
Fuel to the fire for the Galway lads. We started like a train going 3-0 up leaving Meath chasing and chase they did. David Brandley unbeaten for Galway in a cracker of a game that made Galway 4-2 up, however, Meath brought it back to 4-4 before we kicked on to become the 2022 All Ireland B champions on a scoreline of 7-4 with Stephen Faherty hitting the winning double.
It was a tremendous weekend for Galway who were led by a brilliant manager Pat Lally Abbeyknockmoy and an ever-confident reassuring captain in Paul Geraghty also of Abbeyknockmoy. It was a massive team effort and that's what we were all weekend, A TEAM, and a serious team at that. Congratulations to our players who now have an All-Ireland medal in their back pockets the first for any Men's Team since the 99' A final.
