Top seeded Rod Harrington believes if he beats Shayne Burgess of Hastings in the second round today he will go through to the final of the Skol World Darts Championship which ends at Purfleet on Sunday.

Harrington, who won his opening match against young Watford player Alex Roy, 3-0 on Monday night, says: "Shayne is one of the most improved players in the game and our match is going to be a cracker.

"But I've got to be confident. Shayne has only beaten me once in 10 years and that must give me a slight edge. If I win I'm sure I shall make the final."

Yet Chelmsford-based Harrington, who is 41 today, knows he must improve his finishing if he is to go through to the quarter-finals.

He missed 17 doubles in 26 attempts against Roy and cannot afford to be quite so generous against Burgess, who destroyed Canadian Scott Cummings 3-0 in his first round match and lost only one leg in a one-sided contest.

What Harrington needs to do is to repeat his practice form. Before he played Roy he had a nine darter with six treble 20s and then a 141 check-out. Had he done that on the stage in the actual match he would have won £100,000.

But as Harrington said: "I've done 20 or 30 nine-darters in practice but never in competition. I've just missed it five times in exhibitions and three times in matches so it would be nice to do it here. I could do with 100 grand."

Eight first round matches were played yesterday but the most disappointing was when Peter Manley of Surrey crushed Eric Bristow, five times world champion in the 1980's, in nine straight legs.

Bristow, just a shadow of his former self, did not have a single shot at a double throughout the match and scored so badly he may well consider that the time has come to retire from a game he once dominated.

Today four of the biggest guns in the championship. Phil Taylor, Dennis Priestley, Alan Warriner and Keith Deller, will be in first round action.

Taylor, the 38-year-old Stoke maestro who plays the little-known Englishman Reg Harding, will be bidding for his seventh world title, having twice won the Embassy championship at Frimley Green and this event for the past four years.

Yorkshireman Priestley, now playing in glasses, has won both the Embassy and Skol championships. He meets fellow Englishman John Ferrell.

Deller plays in a battle of former world champions for he won the Embassy in 1983 and his opponent Bob Anderson took the Embassy in 1988.

Second seeded Warriner, from Lancaster, has not won a world title but he is arguably playing as well as anyone in the 32-strong field. But he needs to be in top form for he will play Canadian John Part, who won the Embassy in 1994.

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