CARLOW captain Niall Culleton has warned that the county will be one to be feared at this year's INDO Inter-Counties championships following their strong run to the semi-finals last year.
Carlow came within a whisker of making it into last year's final when they fell to a 7-6 defeat to the then champions Dublin in the last four.
And Culleton says the team is improving all the time, with the addition of a number of talented youth players alongside their experienced campaigners.
Culleton enjoyed an excellent INDO Inter-Counties campaign last year, winning the Pairs competition with team-mate Andrew Murphy, before that run to the last four in the team competition.
There will be no Pairs competition this year when the INDO Inter-Counties A championship kicks off in Killarney next weekend, as the Singles competition is being moved to the Friday night, with bigger five-team groups for the team competition on Saturday.
Speaking to Darts In Ireland, Culleton said he sees no reason why the Carlow men can't be successful again.
Niall said: "It's a shame that myself and Andrew won't get the chance to defend our Inter-Counties Pairs title as I would have fancied us to have a good go at winning it again.
"But I understand why the decision was made to move the singles competition to the Friday night and give the county teams more group games on the Saturday.
"I will be there on the Friday night anyway to give the singles a good lash."
Culleton says the emergence of some talented Youth players into the Carlow men's teams ranks this year is giving them some added impetus.
Carlow are the current INDO Inter-Counties Youth champions, which Culleton says shows the hard work going on behind the scenes to improve the game in the county all the time.
He added: "This year we have the likes of Luke Dooley and Jack Courtney coming into the team and they have acquitted themselves very well as these young lads play with no fear.
"We still have a good bunch of experienced players too, which every team needs. There might have been a time when Carlow would be seen as only there to make up the numbers but that is certainly not the case now.
"We had a great run last year as we pushed Dublin all the way to the last game in that semi-final, so Carlow are a team to be feared this year."
In his personal career, Culleton says making it back onto the Ireland team, which he was a member of for the Island Internationals in 2024, is a big goal for him this year.
He has also being competing on the PDC Challenge Tour, but says he will be concentrating more on the INDO ranking events in 2025.
Niall said: "I would like to get my place back on the Ireland team, but with the INDO ranking events being so competitive now, that in itself, is a hard thing to do.
"I will concentrate on the big INDO events and try to get my game back to where I am happy with it, and then maybe go back to the PDC Challenge Tour later in the year."
Culleton has also been a familiar face on the Modus Super Series, an event this is giving a growing number of Irish darts players opportunities and exposure they previously didn't have.
He was one of the first Irish players to qualify for it through the ADC Ireland regional qualifiers, and is still doing well at ADC events, winning two nights at them this week alone.
Culleton also appeared on the Modus Super Series earlier this month, although he admits it didn't exactly go to plan as he failed to make it to finals night from Group C.
Niall said: "I didn't really feel my game was where it should be for that Modus week but an invite to that is something you can't really turn down.
"In some ways it was good to go through that as you get to see where your game is at and where you need to improve, and overall I'm happy with how my game has come on in the past few weeks.
"The ADC events in Ireland are really bringing the game on too, especially with the opportunity to end up on the Modus Super Series.
"So many Irish players, from the likes of Ciaran Teehan, Conor Heneghan, Shane McGuirk, Killian McCormack, Dean Finn and more recently Ronan McDonagh have appeared and done very well on it, so that's great to see."
Culleton added that the growing quality of the Youth game in Ireland is also a sure sign that darts is on the up here.
He said: "So many of the Youth players coming through now are already playing at such a high standard. They play darts like it's just a computer game to them.
"They are hitting high averages like it's just what they are supposed to do all the time and they play with no fear. The game is getting stronger in Ireland all the time."
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