The Isle of Man’s top darters impressed on home soil at the weekend as the annual Islands International tournament took place at the Empress Hotel in Douglas.

The Manx finished runners-up in the men’s and women’s team competition improving on last year’s respective fourth-place finishes in Guernsey.

The 2024 edition of the three-day event began on Friday with a singles tournament. The hosts were joined by darts players from the Channel Islands, Guernsey and Jersey, plus the Republic of Ireland for the competition that was this year organised by the Isle of Man Darts Organisation.

Friday night saw an individual singles tournament taking place with Irish duo Stephen Rosney winning the men’s and Caroline Breen of winning the women’s.

The latter narrowly beat local darting queen Margaret Kelly in the final.

The team event kicked off on Saturday with the Isle of Man women making a winning start, beating Guernsey 5-2, while the Republic of Ireland women defeated Jersey 6-1. This was followed later on in the day by same fixtures for the men. Again the Isle of Man came out on top in these beating Guernsey 9-4, while the Republic of Ireland got the better of Jersey 10-3.

The final matches on Saturday saw the Isle of Man women’s team produce another fantastic display as they beat Jersey 4-3 with Janine Halsall securing the winning game for the island.

The Republic of Ireland’s march continued with another 6-1 victory, this time over Guernsey.

The final day of competition on Sunday saw the Isle of Man men taking on Jersey and they rose to the vocal support at the Empress, running out 10-3 winners.

In the session’s other game the Republic of Ireland completed a demolition job of Guernsey winning 12-1.

Those results set up a grandstand finish for both Isle of Man teams as they went head-to-head with the Republic of Ireland for the titles.

The women got off to a great start when Nikki Bardsley produced some of her best darts to take the opening game, before Ireland won the next two thanks to Caroline Breen and Ann Redmond.

Margaret Kelly drew the island level with a 3-1 win to make it 2-2 but a very strong Ireland team wrapped up the next three games to complete a 5-2 overall victory and secure the title.

In the men’s, Ireland started very strong winning the first four games, before Aaron Bradley got the Manxmen on the board with an excellent victory over Niall Culleton.

Ireland’s dominance, however, continued as they reeled off the next five games with some scintillating darts to secure the match and the overall title.

The Isle of Man weren’t done though and Paul Sertin nearly blew the roof off the Empress when he beat Dylan Dowling 3-1 and Kevin Lane made sure the crowd were treated to something special, winning an absolute thriller 3-2 against Andrew Gillespie.

In the final game Ireland’s Stephen Rosney overcame the vocal home support to beat Willie Biggane 3-1, giving a final score of 10-3 to Ireland.

Those result secured both the men’s, women’s and overall titles for Ireland with the Isle of Man finishing second in all three competitions, a marked improvement from their fourth place finish Guernsey 12 months ago.

Next year’s event moves to Jersey and the island will be looking to go one better and bring home the title for the first time.