THE Roscommon men's darts team have won their first ever senior national title after winning the INDO Inter Counties shield on Sunday night.
The Rossies darters showed tremendous consistency and composure to come through three tough games to claim the shield.
Roscommon team captain Padraig Kearney, a former Ireland international, described the win as "special" for his men.
Padraig said: "This win means an awful lot as it's Roscommon's first senior national title so it's huge for us.
"I'm delighted for the team and everyone on the panel. A lot of work has gone in to get this moment and it's great to see it come to fruition."
The weekend began with some disappointment as Roscommon failed to make it out of their group in the main INDO Inter Counties cup competition on Saturday, which then placed them into the shield on Sunday.
However the Roscommon men more than made amends for that by going on to beat Longford 7-5 in the quarter finals of the shield, before holding their nerves to beat Westmeath 7-6 in a nail-biting semi-final.
That pitted them up against a strong Carlow team in the final, but Roscommon once again prevailed by winning 7-5 to spark huge celebrations amongst the Rossies contingent in the Gleneagle Hotel in Killarney.
The success comes just a year after Roscommon had made it to the semi-finals of the main INDO Inter Counties cup competition, which veteran manager, Tommy Beirne, says augurs well for the future.
Tommy has been involved with Roscommon darts for over 30 years and says he is thrilled to finally see them land such success.
Tommy said: "The two teams in the shield final today were the two teams from the semi-finals of the main cup competition last year.
"We've had All Ireland success with the youths over the years and this is my last year now.
"I often wondered would we ever see that youth success happen with the seniors and just a couple of hours before I'm due to retire we've finally done it. We're very happy."
Meanwhile, the Leitrim men's darts team also enjoyed a great run to the quarter finals of the main INDO Inter Counties cup competition.
The Leitrim team managed to make it into the last 16 on Sunday by coming through a tough group ahead of Carlow, alongside Louth and Wexford.
It was the first time in 12 years that Leitrim had qualified from their group, but they weren't finished there as they then went to record an impressive 7-4 win over a fancied Limerick team to progress to the quarter finals.
The victory was secured by a brilliant double 16 under pressure by Leitrim player Sean Maguire.
They eventually fell to beaten finalists Cork in the last eight, but top Leitrim player Ben Mulvey said they were very happy with their run.
Ben said: "We're very proud of how we performed over the weekend and making it to the quarter finals was a big achievement for us that we can build on."
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