Sky Sports were forced to apologise after Joe Cullen accidentally swore live on TV following his World Darts Championship first round win against Bradley Brooks on Sunday. Cullen, 36, produced an exceptional performance, averaging more than 99 to whitewash Brooks 3-0 and book his spot in the next round of the Alexandra Palace tournament.
But after his win, Cullen, nicknamed the ‘Rockstar’ used X-rated language during his interview with Sky reporter Abigail Davies, forcing her to apologise to viewers. When told that his 99.33 average was his second best at Ally Pally, Cullen said: « It’s cracking love, pretty f****** cracking. »
Once he realised he swore, Cullen held back and looked stunned before Davies stepped in and said: « We apologise. » Cullen added: « I didn’t mean to say that, I am sorry, that is a fine. I’ll play it down. »
The Bradford-born arrowsmith regained his composure before revealing that a comment from his son got him motivated to beat Brooks and prove some doubters wrong. « I knew I was up against a good performer against Bradley Brooks. My son told me Bradley was the favourite for this match and I was like ‘really’?
« I think that’s what I had to do today. I was up for today and I thank my son for that. »
Cullen came into his first round tie against Brooks as the 11/8 outsider, despite ranking 40 places above his opponent in the PDC rankings. But the 36-year-old’s form had been below-par, it’s safe to say.
Indeed, Cullen crashed out of the Players Championship Finals at the first possible opportunity against Peter Wright, before losing four of his last seven matches before that. But his showing against Brooks was nothing short of scincilating. He turned up right from the get-go and blew his opponent away with five 180s, a 116 high checkout and winning nine out of the 11 legs.
Next up for Cullen is the winner of Mensur Suljovic’s clash against David Cameron on Monday. Should Cullen win that, he’ll likely run into reigning champion and world no.1 Luke Littler, who faces David Davies in round two.
Elsewhere in the Sunday afternoon session at the north London venue, there was a huge shock in the first game of the day, with Richie Edhouse falling to a 3-0 defeat against Jonny Tata. Dom Taylor impressed on his debut as he beat Oskar Lukasiak 3-0, while crowd favourite Nitin Kumar edged past Richard Veenstar in a five-set thriller.
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