Darts stars land in Auckland for debut event

Phil Taylor has landed in Auckland for the Auckland Darts Masters this weekend. Photo / Getty

The world darts entourage including the incomparable Phil "The Power" Taylor has landed in Auckland for the weekend's ground-breaking tournament with a promise that they will almost certainly be back.

The raucous phenomenon that the old backroom sport of darts has become will make its big splash in Auckland although Taylor and compatriot Adrian Lewis made a bit of a raid early in the year to Invercargill and Porirua.

Auckland will be hoping it can hang on to this unexpected jewel. With the three-day tournament at the Trusts Arena in West Auckland all but sold out, the Professional Darts Corporation can confidently move ahead with plans to make it a permanent fixture, the PDC chief executive Matthew Porter told the Herald.

Taylor, the 55-year-old Englishman with a long and exceptional winning record that has made him a world sports superstar, is the headline act but the field includes the other big names of darts - Holland's world number one Michael van Gerwen, Adrian Lewis, Gary Anderson, Raymond van Barneveld, James Wade, Stephen Bunting and Peter Wright.

In what was described by one official as "a bit of a travelling circus", more than 60 players, workers and officials arrived on seven different flights yesterday, after the fourth leg of the 2015 Darts Masters series was played in Sydney.

They include a staging crew of six, 40 television people and 15 PDC officials. It is a well practiced act that sees most of them on the road for about eight months a year, mainly around Britain, for the big tournaments and league events.

About 12,000 tickets have been sold - just a few hundred remain - for the arena, where the staging crew will spend two days turning it into a darts venue. The Auckland Darts Masters will be covered by Sky TV.

Porter said: "We like to give any new tournament three years to build, so there is enough time for it to get a hold and create a culture.

"We know from TV figures that there is a darts fraternity here but we didn't know what to really expect, with it being our first time here.

"We were pleasantly surprised by the rapid sales - we've been delighted. We have a long term strategy which includes increasing the number of people who play the game."

The 16-times world champion Taylor may have slipped from the top ranking but he is still a major force, and won the Sydney event. He is in such demand that Taylor travels with his driver who acts as a personal assistant, allowing Taylor to concentrate as much as possible on his game.

The field also includes four Oceania representatives, Rob Szabo from Wellington plus Australians Simon Whitlock, Paul Nicholson and David Platt.

The final four places will be found from the 130 hopefuls entered in four tournaments over three days at Swanson, starting tomorrow.