Conor aims for pro target

EYES ON THE PRIZE Conor Heneghan from Roundfort is aiming to become a professional darts player.

Roundfort native Conor Heneghan is chasing his sporting dreams

Feature
Oisín McGovern

MOST darts players go their entire careers without throwing the most coveted combo in the game. And even if they did hit the sacred ‘nine-darter’ they would rarely pull it off in front of prying eyes in packed pubs or thronged theatres.
But Roundfort native Conor Heneghan has done it not once, but four times in competitive action – two of which were on television!
Conor wasn’t long home from the Modus Super Series – where he threw his latest nine-darter – until he was on a plane out to Germany to the PDC Winmau Challenge Tour.
Had he won it out, he would have earned a long sought-after two-year professional tour card, which would allow him to compete with the best in the business.
Speaking to The Mayo News after his viral nine-darter in Portsmouth, the 24-year-old made no secret of his ambitions.
A talented all-rounder, Heneghan kicked 1-5 in a man-of-the-match display at Croke Park for a Ballinrobe Community School team that won the All-Ireland Post-Primary Schools Senior ‘B’ football championship in 2017.
He has also dazzled in the blue, white and yellow of Hollymount-Carramore and the candystripes of Ballyglass FC.
So when the pandemic put a halt to team sports, his grΡ for the darts really began to flower.
“During Covid I was playing a lot more than what I usually did. I wasn’t playing football or anything. So I started playing well and I started doing well online so I said ‘Do you know, I’ll give it a go and see what happens,’” he explained.
He was far from a newbie to the sport at this stage, though.
Conor’s late father, Padraic, was a fine player while his older brother Martin, who captained Ireland in the Six Nations Cup in Scotland last year, is a household name on the local darts circuit.
So too is Conor, who has represented Mayo on several occasions and was part of the team that won Ireland’s first and only Under-18 European Cup title back in 2015.
Currently a semi-professional, Heneghan still aspires to make a living from the dartboard.
“I was always putting football first and soccer second and darts was just a hobby,” he reveals.
“Then during the Covid my game picked up a lot more. I was averaging higher numbers, like near 100 consistently. I was doing very well. [I said], ‘There’s something here for me to do and I can make this a full-time job hopefully in future.’
“That was my aim. I still play football and soccer, it’s just hard to find the time for them.”
Though now regularly mixing it with pros and semi-pros in the UK and Europe, Heneghan still often finds himself back where it all began on Friday nights – Lyons Pub in Roundfort.
Between the few games in the local and the bit of practice at home, he reckons he gets ‘a few hours’ of throwing time during the week.
Unsurprisingly, nothing beats playing for him.
“It’s a very boring sport sometimes at home,” he says.
“You need a lot of concentration to practice a lot of hours during the week. You’re doing it by yourself. When you’re doing football and soccer, you’re doing it with your friends and team mates, so it’s way easier.
“I think the pub league is very good for me because I get to go out on a Friday and play with other people and play against them.”
While Roundfort may be heaven on a Friday night, the bright lights of Sheffield are still glimmering in the back of his mind.
Going pro has other benefits as well, as he found out when he handed in his notice to Dunnes to go compete at the Modus Super Series.  
“I’m currently jobless at the minute, but I made a good lot of money in the last two weeks, more than I’ve made in Dunnes, I’d say, for a good while,” Heneghan says.
“I’ll try and find something else to keep me going. I hope to make darts my full-time job. That’s the goal.”