Getting to the point with ‘The Punk’ about life on the PDC circuit with his trusty set of arrows and the nervous wait to make it through Q-School

After dropping out of the top 64 in the PDC’s order of merit in 2014, the Swindon thrower had been hauled into the last chance saloon, as his chances of continuing to mix it with the best of the best hinged on the one of the final four matches at the 2015 Pro Tour Qualifying School.

Back in 2012, ‘The Punk’ stepped into the big leagues after a scorching final day performance at that year’s Q School in Barnsley earned him his first tour card but this time around, Haines hadn’t made it to the decisive last-eight stage.

His performances over the past three days of competition had still been consistent enough to leave him in contention for a qualifying berth but his fate rested on the outcome of four-time World Championship-qualifier Magnus Caris’ clash with Steve Willard.

‘The Punk’ held his breath and took his place on the sidelines for Caris and Willard’s decisive showdown.

“I was waiting on one game. If matey (Caris) won it, I was in, but if matey lost it, it was nip and tuck,” said Haines.

“Steve Willard was 3-0 up against Magnus Caris and if Willard had won, I’d have been virtually guaranteed to be out because he’d have gone to 11 points and got his tour card.

“Magnus only had nine but he won and that put him through, Steve on 11 and me on 10. There were about eight of us on 10 and the bottom two didn’t get a card.

“I was watching it. There was nothing you could do about it and it was all about them. It was a big relief.”

Caris’ 5-4 victory over Willard earned the Swedish competitor the final automatic tour card on offer but more importantly for Haines, it meant he finished 16th in the Q School order of merit and would remain on the PDC circuit for two more years.

It was a close shave for the 2013 World Championship qualifier, who has also twice made the UK Open. After being forced into a roll of the dice in the unforgiving pressure-cooker environment of the tour’s qualifying tournament, the 50-year-old is aiming to use his Wigan success as the springboard for a big year of competition.

Haines in action on the PDC Tour

“Q School is hard – it’s 400 players and it’s on a points system,” said ‘The Punk’, who will be using the same trusty set of arrows that have served him since he was a teenager.

“It’s just nitty gritty and you get on with it. If they go, they go. If they don’t, then you won’t be getting any points.

“If you want your card, you’ve got to do as well as you can but it doesn’t always go as well as you want - I just scraped it by two places.

“I qualified and they gave you two options: you could either keep all the money that you’d earned for the last year and have a one-year tour card or take all your money off and start from scratch with a two-year one, so that’s what I did.

“I thought I should do the two-year one to save going to Q School again, because it’s pretty hard there now.

“I didn’t make enough money last year. If I’d made the worlds, I would have stayed in the top 64 but I dropped out of the top 64 and had to go back to Q School.

“It’s a good start to the season, going back there and getting a card and hopefully that kicks off the season.

“I’m playing alright. I’m missing a few doubles but that’ll be alright and you can’t knock the scoring.

“I had a new set of darts made but I’ve gone back to my old ones. I played with my new ones at Q School and I was missing doubles, doubles, doubles, so I’ve gone back to the old ones.

“They’re all worn away and I’ve had them since I was 17 – 33 years.

“You can’t chop and change. I had a set made the same as these ones and they were going alright but as soon as you start missing doubles, you lose faith because it’s all a head game.

“It’s hard work because you’ve got to be good all the time. You can’t be below good because you’ll get hammered every time. The standard’s so high now.

“You just go out to win as many games as you can – simple as that. If you don’t win, you don’t get any money to go on your ranking and you can’t go any higher.”

Earlier this month, Haines got his 2015 campaign off to a flying start as he made a huge step towards reaching the third UK Open of his career.

‘The Punk’ may have exited the second and third qualifiers in the early rounds but on the opening day of competition on February 6, he romped his way to the quarter-final stages, beating PDC mega-star James Wade and former BDO World Championship winner Jelle Klaasen along the way.

And Haines is no stranger to producing show-stopping performances against the youngest world champion in history.

In May last year, the Swindon thrower faced off against Dutchman Klaasen in a Players Championship event in Crawley and etched his name into the PDC’s record books with a sumptuous nine-dart finish.

Officially inducted into the nine-dart club earlier this year, Haines was also delighted to go on to secure a 6-2 victory after previously coming out on the losing side of proceedings when he hit a nine-darter at the Isle of Wight Open.

“When I hit it, I didn’t really realise until after. I just turned around and shook matey’s hand,” said the Punk.

“I hit one on the Isle of Wight in the semi-final and that was the only leg I won.

“So when it happened against Jelle, all that was in my head was to try and hit another treble again and I played alright the rest of the game and beat him 6-2.

“When you hit it, you hit it and you’re in that gang then with (Phil) Taylor and all the big boys.

“Playing with the best is brilliant but I just take every game as it comes – it wouldn’t bother me if it was Taylor or Joe Bloggs in the local league.

“You just play the board, not the player. If you start playing the player, you’ll get beat every time.

“If you hit everything on the day, you’ll be hard to beat but if you hit nothing, you’ll be beat easily.”

Haines is the only Swindon player who is a member of the nine-dart club

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that practice makes perfect when it comes to excelling at the oche but Haines says that practicing in the confines of his own home simply doesn’t cut the mustard for ‘The Punk’.

Instead, he goes out in search of competition at a host of venues around his hometown.

Haines said: “I’ve always lived in Old Town, so I’ve been at the High Street Club on a Friday for nine years now. I play at Even Swindon on Tuesdays and I play out of the Fox & Hounds on a Monday.

“I practice at home but I can only do it for about a half hour because you get a bit bored playing by yourself. You’re better off coming up a pub and playing someone.

“It’s just mates – whoever’s game just gives me a bell and we got up and play. You need certain standard of players to play against but there’s a lot of decent players in Swindon.

“There are about eight of us in Swindon now. There’s Smithy (Dennis Smith), Coxy (Mark Cox), Chris Aubrey, Lee Evans, John Newland, Steve Willard, Richie North; all a decent standard of player.

“You can play some people and they play you rather than the board and when they play you, you seem to get in their head or something – it’s weird.

“If they play badly, you play badly as well.

“In the Wroughton league, we were getting moaned at. ‘What are you doing in the Wroughton league?’. But we just come up for a game of darts and it’s not like we’ve come up to show off or anything.

“We’re just there to play darts. You don’t go out there to embarrass anyone. You just go out there to throw and try to win and play well.”

Haines is well at home at the top of the darts world and the last chance saloon is a long way in his rear-view mirror as he chases the glitz and glamour of the PDC’s showpiece competitions.

He may enter arenas to the sounds of iconic band the Sex Pistols but ‘The Punk’ is happy to keep any anti-establishment acts on the back-burner – after all, he doesn’t have the mane for it anymore.

“I’ve been a punk since I was 13 or 14 – it’s just that the hair fell out. My missus moans about the music but that’s all I listen to,” said Haines.

“Sometimes I’m a rebel, sometimes I’m quiet. It can’t be all the time because I’ll get fined.”