The new year is a fantastic time to reset and recalibrate.
For the Island’s darting stars Keegan Brown and Joe Hunt, there’s an opportunity to reflect on the successes of 2025, while feeling rightly confident of what’s in store for them in the year ahead.
Moving the Needle
Although world darts is dominated by the two Lukes right now, there’s still ample scope for others to have their moment.
That was in evidence at the Alexandra Palace over the festive period, where a series of underdogs considerably outperformed their World Darts Championship odds.
The likes of Krzysztof Ratajski and Justin Hood found themselves in the quarter finals of the showpiece occasion, despite those placing darts bets being able to secure odds as long as 500/1 and 1,000/1 on the pair, respectively.
Keegan Brown often saw himself as an underdog while on the PDC Tour, but that didn’t prevent him from winning two ranking event titles and reaching the last 16 of the World Championship himself in 2018.
The Needle, who grew up in Newport, first won a PDC Tour card back in 2012, winning the World Youth Championship two years later while reaching the Grand Slam of Darts quarter finals in 2014.
His form has been patchy over the past decade – Keegan himself would be the first to admit that, but he offered a reminder of his talents when landing a Modus Super Series final in Portsmouth in September.
WHAT IT ALL MEANS… 🥹
Last night, Keegan Brown won his first Super Series title, and you could see just how much it meant… 👏 pic.twitter.com/pDl7VIY583
— MODUS Super Series (@MSSdarts) September 14, 2025
Brown averaged 98.29 in the final, defeating Jimmy Van Schie – who would go on to win the WDF World Championship in December – by a scoreline of 4-2.
Having worked as a medical lab assistant in blood services on the Island – hence the nickname of ‘The Needle’, Keegan is no stranger to high-pressure situations.
And that experience, allied to the form he has shown with darts in hand in 2025, suggests that Brown can look forward to a fruitful 2026 on the oche.
In the Hunt
Meanwhile, another Islander will have big ambitions of his own this year.
Joe Hunt is on a different trajectory from Keegan Brown, having yet to taste life as a professional dartist. But his performances on the PDC Challenger Tour in 2025 – the top-tier of amateur darts – suggest that the Isle of Wight man is very much heading in the right direction.
It was back in August that Hunt overcame a huge 190-player field to win, defeating former PDC Tour card holders in Michael Barnard and David Evans – the latter courtesy of a 98.47 average – along the way, before downing Derek Maclean in the final.
HUNT WINS CT16! 🏆
Joe Hunt gets his weekend off to a brilliant start, as the Englishman wins his first ever Winmau Challenge Tour title!
He beats Derek Maclean 5-4 in a last-leg decider, rattling off three legs on the spin and sealing the victory with a 15-dart leg!#CT16 pic.twitter.com/k4utYvFynh
— PDC Darts (@OfficialPDC) August 15, 2025
His consistency across the course of the season meant that Hunt finished inside the top 20 of the PDC Challenger Tour rankings – ahead of the likes of Andreas Harryson, who enjoyed a fine run at the World Championships in December.
There was a quarter-final run in a PDPA Players Championship event in October – Hunt’s best ever performance against the professionals, with Niels Zonneveld, who reached the third round of the World Championships, needing an average of 99 to see off the Islander.
Joe is, quite clearly, a player with a very high performance ceiling… how will that manifest itself in 2026?
