Three Players Who Caught My Eye This Week
Another week of grassroots darts, and this time my three selections are Steve Boundy, Edward Manley and Ellie Harwood.
Once again, this isn't simply about finding the three highest averages or counting who collected the most trophies. One player reached three finals during the week, another put together three consecutive tournament victories, while the third followed a run to an open Vault final by winning a ladies event the following day.
Three very different weeks — and three players who caught my eye.
Steve Boundy
Player Profile
Steve Boundy's record shows just how consistently he has performed across the events covered by Q4QS.
He has played 1,043 recorded matches, winning 849 of them for an 81.4% win rate. Across 148 events he has recorded 53 tournament victories, as well as another 14 runner-up finishes and 27 semi-finals. His current form is also excellent, with nine wins from his last ten matches.
Boundy's overall match average stands at 71.62, with a best recorded performance of 100.20. His record includes victories over the likes of Nick Eggbeer, Dom Taylor, Shaun Vernall and Geoff James.
This Week
It was the consistency of Boundy's week that caught my attention.
He reached three finals across the week, winning two of them. After taking the title at Minehead, he reached another final at the Sartan Club before finishing the week with another tournament victory on Saturday night.
That Saturday success required another lengthy run. Boundy beat Sam Wilkes, Cori Wiltshire and Louis Dance before edging Paul Meyer 4–3 in the semi-final. He then defeated Leon Taylor 4–1 in the final to take the title.
It means this wasn't one standout evening. Boundy repeatedly put himself in position to win tournaments across the week.
With 53 recorded tournament victories now on his profile and another two titles added during this seven-day period, his consistency continues to stand out.
Edward Manley
Player Profile
Few players in the Q4QS database have accumulated a record quite as extensive as Edward Manley's.
Manley has played 1,085 recorded matches, winning an extraordinary 917 of them. That's an 84.5% win rate, while his 163 recorded events have produced 64 tournament victories and 27 runner-up finishes.
He's also currently on a perfect run of 10 wins from his last 10 matches.
His overall average is 75.39, with a best of 107.36. That peak has actually been reached twice — most recently earlier this month against Morgan Dobbs at Duffy's in Pontypridd.
This Week
Manley's week was much easier to describe:
Three nights. Three tournament victories.
He won at Duffy's in Pontypridd, followed it by another Vault victory at County Cons in Cardiff, and then completed the sequence at Splott Albion Pavilion.
The Friday run was particularly impressive.
Manley began with a 91.09 average, before progressing through the tournament and producing 79.71 against Tom Breward, 82.27 in the quarter-final and 81.98 in the semi-final. Liam Forward was waiting in the final, where Manley completed the hat-trick of titles with a 3–2 victory.
Three consecutive Vault titles is impressive enough on its own. Doing it as part of a current 10-match winning streak makes the week even stronger.
Manley was one of the more obvious contenders for this week's three — but sometimes a run is simply too good to overlook.
Ellie Harwood
Player Profile
Ellie Harwood is perhaps my favourite example this week of why I don't want this feature to become simply a list of serial tournament winners.
Harwood has played 437 recorded matches, winning 251. She has seven tournament victories, ten runner-up finishes, seven semi-finals and 15 quarter-finals from her 81 recorded events.
Most importantly for this feature, her current form reads nine wins and just one defeat from her last ten matches.
Her overall match average is 56.06, while her best recorded performance is 83.50. Her record also contains three victories over Steve Boundy, including averages of 78.00 and 75.58.
This Week
Harwood's two days at Pegasus were exactly the sort of story I was looking for.
First came Friday's Vault 19 at Pegasus 68 Club — an open event.
Harwood progressed all the way to the final, beating Sam Leitch 3–0, Harry Cave 3–1 and Paul Gardiner 3–0 during the knockout stages.
In the final she produced her best average of the knockout run, 69.46, but was edged 3–2 by Ryan Greenslade.
Twenty-four hours later, she was back at Pegasus for the Ladies Round Robin.
This time she finished the job.
Harwood recorded six consecutive victories, including a 71.57 average against Kaye Megit, before beating Sally Chinn 3–0 in the quarter-final, Amy Pearce 3–0 in the semi-final and Shelley Cotterell 3–1 in the final.
So across two days she reached two finals, won one of them and compiled nine victories from ten matches.
That's exactly what I want the Weekly Spotlight to find: not necessarily the week's biggest average or biggest collection of trophies, but a performance that deserves a little more attention.
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