WILLIE O'Connor enjoyed a St Patrick's Day to remember as he nailed a nine darter on his way to finishing in the top eight at the PDC Players Championship 7 today.
The Magpie landed the perfect leg in his last 16 win over Dutchman, Jimmy van Schie, as he prevailed 6-1 in that match.
It's the third nine dart leg for O'Connor over the past two years, after he hit one last August in a European Tour Card holder qualifier, and also at the Players Championship in Hildesheim in March 2023.
O'Connor was in fine form all day today as he opened with a 6-3 first round win over Canada's Jim Long, before averaging 97.17 in a 6-4 win over Ian White to put him into his board final.
He beat Tom Sykes of England 6-3 in that, to set up his last 16 clash with Van Schie in which O'Connor averaged an impressive 102.98.
He hit the nine darter in the second last leg of that match, and then followed that up with an 11 dart leg to wrap up the win.
However, O'Connor came unstuck in his quarter final match with England's Adam Lipscombe, as he fell to a 6-4 defeat.
Lipscombe has earlier accounted for O'Connor's fellow Limerick man Michael Flynn in his first round match.
Elsewhere, Meath's Keane Barry also fell at the first hurdle today as he lost out to Andrew Gilding, while Tipperary's Dylan Slevin lost to George Killington.
There was better fortune for Carlow's Steve Lennon, however, as he came through his first round game with a 6-3 over Dimitri van den Bergh.
Lennon then averaged 97.22 as he recorded the same winning scoreline over Scotland's Cameron Menzies, but lost out in his board final to Holland's Dirk van Duijvenbode.
Tyrone's Mickey Mansell began his day strongly by averaging 102.81 in a 6-1 win over Germany's Leon Weber, but then lost out 6-4 in a high quality clash to Belgium's Mike De Decker in which both players averaged just shy of 100.
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