KILCOO teenager Eoin
Rooney will take on the best
young talent the darts world
has to offer as he begins his
campaign in the PDC
Development Tour on
Friday.
This year, the first event of the tour
will take place at the Marshall Arena
in Milton Keynes, England, from the
23rd to the 25th of February.
The Development Tour allows
players from the age of 16 to 24 to
nurture and develop their talents and
has been the training school for many
darts greats, including teenage
sensation Luke Littler.
Eoin, who plays for Mooney’s Bar in
the Castlewellan Darts League, has
some way to go before he reaches the
level of Littler, but he has plenty of
practice behind him, as proud dad
Jimmy explained.
“He (Eoin) was maybe two and a
half or three years of age, we had a
plastic dartboard for children.
“I got him a wee set of darts and
put the plastic dartboard on the stairs.
“We decided one day we’d put the
plastic dartboard below my own
dartboard in the back hall and let him
throw and he just took off from there.”
His talent was apparent from an
early age and when the Castlewellan
Darts League began to play ‘Zoom’
tournaments online during the first
Covid lockdown in 2020, Eoin, who
was still only 12, started to grab the
attention of other local players.
“There was times when he would
come in and say ‘daddy I hit 60 or I hit
100 or I hit a bull.’
“During the first lockdown, the
Castlewellan Darts League started to
do darts competitions over Zoom Call
in our own houses on a Friday night.
“He started throwing and people
were saying he could get up to the
average of some of the players in our
league,” Jimmy said.
A longstanding member of the
Mooney’s Bar team, Jimmy decided
to offer Eoin’s services when he
discovered Mooney’s were short of a
player last year and that’s when
Castlewellan League chairman
Eamon Clarke saw Eoin in action for
the first time.
“I’ve been playing darts for a long
time, I’ve seen a lot of players come
and go,” he said.
“We were short last year for the
Mooney’s team and Jimmy said: ‘Our
Eoin will play’. Straight away myself
and Mickey Croskery, one of the
longest serving players in the
Castlewellan Darts League, looked at
each other and went ‘this young lad is
good’.
“There was no nerves with him, he
was just constantly hitting the treble
20, right from the first time I saw him
throw a dart, we knew this lad was
going to go places,” Eamon said.
It wasn’t long before Eamon and
Castlewellan League secretary Brian
McAlinden proposed the idea to Eoin
and Jimmy of taking part in the
Development Tour.
A committee member on the
Castlewellan League for over ten
years, Eamon wanted to give Eoin the
opportunity that other local talent
perhaps didn’t get in the past.
“We believe he has the talent and
we want to show him as a league that
we support him.
“There’s been other players that
have came through the league and
been very good, some went on to play
county darts, playing against the likes
of Daryl Gurney (Northern Irish
professional darts player and the
winner of two PDC majors).
“The players we had were every bit
as good as Daryl Gurney but the
difference was Daryl went over to
England to push on and our players
didn’t. We didn’t want this to happen
with Eoin.”
Eamon says Eoin’s mentality and
consistency levels are what set him
apart.
“One thing I’ll say about Eoin is he
has real mental strength. Sometimes
you see players, and they can be
brilliant in their bedroom but as soon
as the referee says ‘game on’, the
nerves get to them and their darts
just fall away. Eoin doesn’t suffer from
that.
“He brings those same consistent
high standards all the time, whether it
be in the house, in practice or in the
game.
“That’s what makes the brilliant
throwers better than the traditional
league players.”
The 16-year-old, who only
celebrated his birthday last Tuesday,
is also a goalkeeper with the Kilcoo
GAC Minors and is looking forward to
the challenge, saying he plans to take
“one game at a time” in Milton
Keynes.
“When it first came about it seemed
like a big thing but now I just can’t
wait to get over there and start
playing.
“I’m just going to take it one game
at a time.
“I just want to focus on that first
game and getting that first win on the
board and I’ll try my best from there,”
Eoin said.
The success of fellow 16-year-old
Luke Littler has brought darts into
the spotlight recently and the
Castlewellan League chairman says
he has noticed an upsurge in young
players like Eoin wanting to play the
sport locally.
“Darts has a reputation of being an
old man’s game, it still has that legacy
from the ‘80s and ‘90s, but we’ve seen
a transformation in the last few years.
“If you came into Mooney’s Bar on
New Year’s Day, we were hosting a
pairs competition and the amount of
young lads that signed up to play was
fantastic to see.
“The league is going to have a U-25
tournament because there’s so much
interest.
“That would have been unheard of
ten years ago, now we’re having a
dedicated competition for these young
players,” Eamon explained.
If you want to follow Eoin’s
progress at the tour, you can visit
dartconnect.com, which will provide a
live score feed of the competitions.
