Shropshire darts trio suffer on the oche in Ireland
Shropshire darters Ted Hankey, Darren Whittingham and Paul Rowley have all suffered early exits at two tournaments in Ireland over the weekend.
All three were in action at the Players Championship, on Saturday and Sunday, at the Citywest Hotel in Dublin but none made it past the opening two rounds.
Hankey was the only one to get past round one on Saturday as Whittingham went down 6-5 to John Scott while Rowley was defeated 6-4 by Matthew Edgar.
But Hankey edged out Brian Woods 6-5 to make it to round two where he lost 6-3 to Terry Jenkins.
Saturday's competition was won overall by Michael van Gerwen, who claimed his fourth PDC Pro-Tour title of the year after taking a thrilling deciding-leg match against Robert Thornton.
Yesterday all three of Shropshire's representatives went out in round one with Whittingham going down 6-5 to Michael Barnard, Hankey losing 6-3 to Joe Murnan and Rowley defeated by Kevin McDine 6-3.
Thornton won yesterday's competition by defeating Gary Anderson 6-5 in the final.
