Josh Rock and Daryl Gurney are reigning World Cup of Darts champions, but Rock is ready for eyes to be elsewhere this year.
Northern Ireland claimed a historic victory at the 2025 BetVictor World Cup of Darts, defeating Wales 10-9 in a dramatic final in Frankfurt.
Rock and Gurney – the tournament’s fourth seeds – broke down in tears after holding their nerve to make history for their nation.
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Josh Rock and Daryl Gurney were in tears after clinching the World Cup of Darts title after an epic last-leg decider
The duo enter this year’s tournament as the third seeds and will join the action on Saturday with top seed England’s Luke Littler and Luke Humphries, Netherlands’ Michael van Gerwen and Gian van Veen, plus fourth seed Scotland’s Gary Anderson and Cameron Menzies.
Despite being the partnership that was better than the rest in 2025, Rock expects all focus to be on how Littler and Humphries will fare on their second time out at the World Cup.
The English world No 1 and 2 dramatically crashed out in the second round when they were beaten by Germany’s Ricardo Pietreczko and Martin Schindler in their debut year as a pair.
“It is just very, very hard to believe that’s already been a year,” Rock said.
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Josh Rock and Daryl Gurney attempted to put into words how they were feeling after Northern Ireland won the World Cup of Darts for the first time
“It has been a very quick year so I’m really looking forward to the no pressure on me.
“I don’t know how Daryl’s feeling because I haven’t really spoken to him much about it. I don’t want to think about it much but I’m looking forward to defending this title.
“Obviously everyone is talking about England. Last year, no one really thought there was going to be anything but the Lukes were going to win it.
“So, it is probably the same feeling this year, even more so maybe this year, that because it didn’t happen last year they’re not going to let that happen again.”
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Highlights from the second round game between England and Germany at the World Cup of Darts
While Littler and Humphries are the clear favourites once again, with many expecting them to be a different force this time around, Rock insists that the pairs game is very different.
Indeed, he puts his and Gurney’s success down to the fact that they work on so much together behind the scenes to ensure it clicks on the oche.
“You don’t know if they’re going to click or not again. Pairs is a completely different game than it is to singles, so it’s up to them to obviously get themselves a kick up the backside to work together. So that’s up to them,” he added.
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Germany stunned pre-tournament favourites England in the second round of the World Cup of Darts, sending Luke Littler and Luke Humphries crashing out
“Everybody else just needs to worry about themselves.
“I think if you have a very close partnership it really, really helps a lot. It probably takes the pressure off each individual
a lot more and obviously me and Daryl do a lot behind the scenes together, so that does help a lot.
“They are always going to be the top two anyway because they are No 1 and No 2 in the world.
“It is always going to be between them two and rightly so because they are the ones who are doing the business at the minute.
“Hopefully me and Daryl can obviously sneak up through and obviously win it again.”
Who will win this year’s World Cup of Darts? Northern Ireland will be defending their title and you can watch all the action on Sky Sports from June 11-14. Stream darts and more top sport with NOW.
