Players Championship Night 2

Posted: 10.12.11 in Tournament Analysis Blog category

What a night-We have jet fighters, bottle and suggest cricket may hold the answer for injured dart players.

It was another night of high drama in Doncaster last night with some fantastic darts and on occasions woeful finishing!

Shhhhh, it’s a darts match

You can’t please all the people all of the time. There have been a few complaints by armchair fans about the atmosphere in the Doncaster Dome. Too quiet is the opinion of some. One spectator tried to single-handedly rectify this particular aspect of the coverage by yelling out just as “The Bull” was going for a crucial double.  Jenkins missed the shot and the spectator was blamed for being the sole reason (excuse) for Terry losing the game.

This reminded me of the story of a golfer with a crucial putt on the 18^th hole to win a tournament. Just as he was about to strike the ball a fighter jet momentarily appeared overhead leaving the frightening roar from its engines over the green.

The golfer sank the putt and was congratulated by his incredulous caddie. How did you keep your concentration after that sudden noise from the plane?

Plane? What plane was the reply!

The Power

If our pal Rodders had been commentating last night he would have said “I don’t like the word but it is the best way of describing Taylor, bottle!” Well you could try mental toughness Rodders, but bottle is fine!

We have a blog on mental toughness here. I had a quick look at it this morning and a few of the traits of a sportsman with high levels of mental toughness shone through in “The Power” last night. They were:

• Having an insatiable desire to succeed
• Thriving on the pressure of competition
• Not being adversely affected by others’ good and bad performances

What a dart player!

Do a Runner

Poor Michael Van Gerwen sustained a rather nasty injury prior to his match against Gary Anderson last night. This meant he hobbled on stage and was very tentative about putting too much weight on his injured foot/leg. He lost 6:0

Darts likes to borrow ideas from other sports and why not? We have influences of golf (the order of merit), football (Premier League) to name a couple. In that case could the PDC have pinched an idea from cricket and given Michael a “runner”?

A runner is one of your team mates who comes out during a cricket match and does the “nitty gritty” of legging it up and down the wicket on your behalf if you are carrying an injury. You still have to whack the ball but the chore of engaging in any physical activity is voided completely.

You cannot compare dashing down the wicket with the prospect of a round leather missile whacking you on the head via a wayward throw with the stroll to the oche to collect your darts I admit. Nevertheless it would have saved “Mighty Mike” causing any more unnecessary trauma to his already painful injury.

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