Good Premier League season so far and would not have put Painter or Hamilton in myself but did themselves proud and Barney aquited himself better than expected after looking on the downgrade most of last year.

With Pipe, Chisnall and Newton doing well in the floor events it sets up Bolton nicely and it could be one hell of a tournament with an open draw and quality players such as Wade, Nicholson, Webster and King not qualifying in the top 32 and having to play from Round 1.

Robert Thornton

Great performance by the Thorn, no matter how many excuses Deckchair Dave tries to make for lardarse Taylor. Fully deserved 2nd major victory of his career!

I completely missed the idiot getting on stage, must've been when I went for a cuppa.

Anyone see what happened?

Yeah, don't cha feel sorry for 'The Power'?
Errrrm ... NO!
Well done Thornton for not dissolving into a pile of sweaty putrefaction just because you were playing Phil Taylor, unlike most other players who play the player and not the board.

We were at the darts and the lad never actually got onto the stage he got over the barriers and as the security grabbed him he knocked over a few of the lights by the steps which was what made Thornton stop in his throw.

To be honest I don't think it would have happened at any other venue because the walk ways are usually towards one side and they go onto the stage from the corner but because the walk on at Bolton is dead centre he got close before anyone realised what was going on.

Taylor made a meal of it but it should not have happened but as he said it was almost inevitable it would happen somewhere but in some ways the PDC have made a rod for their own back and any crowd problems that do occur are partly of their own making. Saying that apart from one idiot it was a very good crowd for the final with none of the nastiness that was apparent at the last final I went to at Doncaster in December.

We were saying that after to be honest very few of the players have the right attitude to beat Taylor but hopefully now others will show a bit more belief if they meet him at the later stages of a tournament.

I must admit that I didn't watch the final live because I fully expected Taylor to win and the guy can be an arrogant sod when he is winning. I mean during the game!
So I watched it yesterday in the repeat programme and was delighted to see that smug smile wiped from his face after he went 2-0 up.
He really was acting like an @rse again, totally disrespecting Thornton and clowning about on stage as he put on his 'easy!, easy!' act.
Hardly surprising given that he is used to door mats as opponents.
Little did he know what was to come.

To be fair to him, he missed countless doubles and let Thornton in.
It can be argued that he is not used to that kind of pressure and Thorton made him jittery. I would like to think that was the case rather than Taylor having a bad day at the office.

It's just nice to have someone else win for a change.

Thought flintoff was going to have a heart attack then during commentary when van Gerwen threw the 9 darter!

R.I.P Sid Waddell