Northern Ireland World Cup of Darts hopes are still alive after Josh Rock and Daryl Gurney dragged the defending champions through a last-leg thriller against Belgium in Frankfurt, keeping one of the biggest PDC storylines of finals day firmly on the board.
The holders beat Mike De Decker and Dimitri Van den Bergh 8-7 in the last 16 of the 2026 BetVictor World Cup of Darts, surviving a match that looked in danger of slipping away when Belgium moved 5-2 ahead. For darts fans, the significance is obvious: Northern Ireland are not simply still in the tournament, they have already shown the stubbornness that made last year’s title run feel so dangerous.
According to Live Darts, Rock and Gurney won six of the final eight legs, with Gurney taking out 102 to complete the escape. That sets up a quarter-final against Latvia on Sunday June 14, after Madars Razma and Valters Melderis edged France 8-7 to reach the last eight for the first time.
Northern Ireland Show Champion Instinct Again
The comeback mattered because Belgium had the weapons to make the upset stick. De Decker and Van den Bergh are seasoned PDC operators, and at 5-2 they had Northern Ireland under genuine pressure. Yet Rock and Gurney did what strong World Cup pairs so often do: they stayed close enough to make one swing count.
Gurney’s verdict captured the belief inside the partnership. Live Darts quoted him saying: “At no stage did we think we were beaten.” That is a short line, but it explains plenty about why Northern Ireland remain such awkward opponents in this format.
This was also a useful reminder of the point Rock made before the event in a Sky Sports interview, when he said: “Pairs is a completely different game than it is to singles.” The comment looks sharper after a match where rhythm, trust and recovery mattered as much as raw scoring power.
Northern Ireland entered the knockout stage as defending champions, having won the 2025 World Cup of Darts with Rock and Gurney as a new pairing. That history gave this win extra weight. A routine victory would have been tidy enough. A comeback from 5-2 down gives the champions something more combustible: proof under pressure.
Latvia Test Now Blocks The Route To Another Semi-Final
The reward is a meeting with Latvia, who have already broken new ground. Razma and Melderis came through their own deciding-leg match against France, meaning Northern Ireland are not the only side arriving in the quarter-finals with momentum and belief.
The Sky Sports schedule lists Sunday’s quarter-finals as Scotland v Republic of Ireland, England v Wales, Northern Ireland v Latvia, and Netherlands v Germany. That gives the holders a route which avoids England, Wales, Netherlands and Germany until later in the day, but it also brings the danger of facing a Latvian pair with nothing to lose.
The wider context is important too. Before the tournament, Northern Ireland started their World Cup defence in a strange position: champions, but not necessarily the main conversation. England’s Luke Littler and Luke Humphries have carried much of the attention, while the Netherlands and Scotland also arrived with heavyweight names.
That suits Rock and Gurney. The pair have never needed to look like the smoothest team in the draw to be the most effective one. Their whole World Cup identity is built around resilience, and this was another example of it.
Belgium Escape Story Turns Into Northern Ireland Warning
There is an irony in how this section of the draw has unfolded. Belgium only reached the knockout stage after a tense group-stage escape, a storyline covered when Belgium were handed a Northern Ireland clash. That reprieve gave De Decker and Van den Bergh a shot at the champions, and for much of the match they looked capable of taking it.
Instead, Northern Ireland turned Belgium’s near miss into their own warning to the field. They were behind, they were under pressure, and they still found a way through.
One natural mention of the PDC World Cup of Darts is never just about the names on the team sheet. It is about how players combine when legs become messy and the format starts asking awkward questions. On that measure, Rock and Gurney have already answered one of the weekend’s biggest tests.
Now the question is whether Latvia can make them answer another.
