Years of teammates and now rivals: Who will join Josh Rock at World Cup of Darts?

From 2016 through 2023, Brendan Dolan and Daryl Gurney played together every year at the World Cup of Darts. One of them will have to watch this year's tournament from the couch at home.

It is customary for a country's two best players to be invited to the World Cup of Darts. For years, Daryl Gurney and Brendan Dolan were the two best players from Northern Ireland.

In 2022, however, there was the emergence of the talented Josh Rock, who also became World Youth Champion in 2022. Because the world rankings are a ranking based on performance over a 24-month period, however, he fell short of forcing a spot on the Northern Ireland team in 2023.

By the end of 2023, however, Rock managed to pass his compatriots in the world rankings and 'Rocky' has been considered Northern Ireland's best dart player ever since. The 23-year-old darter will make his debut at this year's World Cup of Darts.

So he will be joined in that by Dolan or Gurney, both of whom already have plenty of experience at the tournament. Dolan did not even miss an edition at the World Cup of Darts. 'The History Maker' was there when the tournament was founded in 2010. Besides Dolan, only William O'Connor, Mensur Suljovic and Simon Whitlock have attended all editions so far.

Dolan is currently in pole position to team with Rock, but the former World Grand Prix finalist will have to pull out all the stops to keep Gurney behind him. One more ranking tournament will be played prior to the cutoff on May 27.

On the weekend of May 24-26, the Dutch Darts Championship will be played in Rosmalen. Dolan has a 500-pound lead over Gurney in the qualifying round, which therefore means Dolan will have to match Gurney's result at the Dutch Darts Championship to stay ahead of his compatriot. By the way, it is also possible that the two Northern Irishmen will face each other in the first round of the Euro Tour tournament in the Netherlands. The draw for the Dutch Darts Championship will be conducted on Thursday, May 23.