The Ladies England County Rankings Round 5 has now been completed. Although we have had to weather the Covid pandemic this year, as originally we would have completed the usual 9 matches, we have nevertheless been able to arrive at a final table for 2021.
There were a total of 357 Lady players in the table, which includes players who are members of a county who in turn are members of England Darts, along with the individual player’s memberships from associate members to Gold status memberships, who qualified as of the conclusion of matches played on 12th December 2021.
We all begin from scratch in January, and this year we hope if all things are running normally, that the England County Rankings will revert back to the original situation, where a players best 6 games will count towards the direct International qualifications.
Unfortunately we have had to make the best of the truncated season, where our only option was to use all the possible 5 games, which we do take on board, doesn’t help players who have been unable to attend certain of the 5 scheduled matches through sickness, and government restrictions on a positive test for Covid, or in fact fell foul of another county cancelling a match.
We cannot stress how important it is that all players contact their associated counties executives from 1st January 2022 to identify whether they are members of The England Darts Organisation, if they find out they are not the players who wish to be identified into the England County Rankings, should make themselves an England playing individual member.
Only statistics gained at County matches will count when that player becomes a member, they will not have their county matches included into the County Ranking tables, retrospectively.
Although we don’t look at any players who don’t meet the above criteria, it has come to light that three players who didn’t fit the criteria because their county chose not to be members of England, would in one instance absolutely qualified for the England International Team next May, with two others having a realistic chance through the selection process to be held in the next couple of weeks.
Sadly missed opportunities which could change their careers may not come back again.