In a piece in this space immediately prior to what you will ingest hereafter, mention was made of the fact that, at that point, for certain players, their victories were of the breakthrough variety.
Well, as much as that truly was the case, the next stages have provided inclinations that those advancing from same can be considered to be at a similar junction.
In the first match on the second last day of 2025, it was a case of slow and steady winning the race. To decode that into simplicity, where Luke Woodhouse shot quickly, created a boat load of chances, to invoke a bit of parlance from another discipline, while The Shed wracked up the ‘wides’, the ‘Polish Eagle’ slowly, methodically, pedanticly lobbed in score after score to run out a fairly comfortable winner.
Following that, Jonny Clayton needed all his ferreting skills to dig his way out of a very trying situation against the doughty Swede – who must surely have auditioned for ZZ Top back in the day – Andreas Harrysson. Which manifested in the wily Welshman hitting 180s galore and conjuring big out shots when they were needed too.
During the evening session which followed, it was a case of some players engineering statement successes and – in the highlight of the entire tournament to date – a pair of legends turning back the hands of time and producing a contest to rival the best of any to have graced the old stage. Even though the 4-1 score line would suggest otherwise.
Yes, Michael Van Gerwen was throwing shots in a wayward manner more akin to a Mayo man in an All Ireland Final, but, even allowing for that, Gary Anderson still would, on all known form, have had to up his game quite a bit, to get by Mighty Mike.
But boy did he. To levels perhaps not seen in nearly the decade since last The Flying Scotsman lifted the Sid Waddell Trophy. You know it’s instructive, perhaps instinctive that, when pressure is ratcheted up to the nth degree, the reflex reaction is to go back to (a) what we know best and (b) what has served us well in the past.
Mention Gary Anderson in such a context and double 10 and 2 x 12 immediately comes to mind. Thus, when it came to the inches required to navigate a way past the Dutch legend, it was, as Talking Heads once sang, the same as it ever was.
Then, in the final pair of third last hurdle encounters, both were very much statements of intent. As firstly Gian Van Veen swatted off the attentions of another of the rapid rising stars in the game, Charlie Manby.
Then, the same narrative could be applied to what followed immediately thereafter as Luke Humphries saw to it that Kevin Doets eventually ran out of road.
Fear not, though, this epic still has several chapters to go.
Fág freagra