Taylor: will he win again?

John Meade came out with the quote: "Verily this Taff has skills of the arrows of outrageous proportions." Even in my wildest fantasies I couldn't come up with a line as good as that.

Sid Waddell
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PREMIER LEAGUE DARTS
Semi-finals and Final
Live from Cardiff
6pm, Monday, Sky Sports 2

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The Whyte & Mackay Premier League Darts season is set for a thrilling finale in Cardiff on Bank Holiday Monday.

Sid Waddell has followed every toss of tungsten throughout the season and he's tipping Taylor to complete a remarkable return to form by retaining his trophy.

Gone to the dogs...

I've been warming up for the final night of the Premier League in a most unusual way.

On Tuesday night I commentated live on the greyhound racing at Wimbledon - and I've never been so nervous in all my life.

The Sid Waddell Stakes was what they call a marathon - twice around the track - and I was coached by a number of experts to call the race with all of the right lingo. But sitting there live on the gantry, I was shaking like a leaf and my blood pressure was going through the roof.

My opening line when they handed over to me was: "here's the bunny, so I'd better start rabbiting" and I was very happy to find out I'd called the first, second and third place correctly.

A dog called Swift Jade won over the last 50 metres, and I suggested they'd be cheering in the Big Brother house, shouting 'goody goody for Jade'.

I counted back and I got 123 words into a 56-second race, so that's got me right in the mood for the darts in Cardiff where the spread betting on mentions of leeks and daffodils is 50 to 91.

I'll also be trying to match the greatest ever darts line, which was written by my old friend John Meade after watching the great Welshman Alan Evans in 1973.

He came out with the Shakespearian phrase: "Verily this Taff has skills of the arrows of outrageous proportions." Even in my wildest fantasies I couldn't come up with a line as good as that.

I've not been able to go back into my local since Tuesday night because I told everyone to put all of their money on a dog called Genesis Alix - and she promptly lost.

So instead I've been spending my time at home reading up on Phil Taylor and comparing what he's doing with the game compared to the players of 1972 when I started working on TV darts.

I remember there were two 180s in a game between Alan Evans and Tony Ridler, which impressed us so much it was shown on World of Sport on Saturday afternoon. These days we barely bat an eyelid when somebody does that.

When Dennis Priestley won the world championship in 1991 his average for the week was 94, Taylor won it in 1992 with a 95 average and John Part's 1994 win came off an 87 average.

But to beat Taylor in Cardiff, the other three will need an end average of approximately 107. That's how far things have come.

Taylor and Adrian Lewis have no nerves so that will be the broad sword match, while the two more fragile players - Raymond van Barnevled and James Wade - will give us the rapiers in the other semi-final.

Phil Taylor v Adrian Lewis

In his last 25 competitive matches, Taylor has averaged above 100 on 12 occasions.

Pertinently, that statistic includes matches against the other three semi-finalists. He beat Barney with a 111 average in Nottingham, he beat Wade with a 105 average in Brighton and Lewis with a 105 average in Aberdeen; it's almost as if he saves his best for his nearest rivals.

At the US Open in Connecticut last weekend he enjoyed victories in the latter stages over Colin Osborne with a 107 average and Dennis Priestley with a 111 average. He's coming into this as hot as a rattlesnake inside a hot dog!

We will see a longer format in Cardiff with the semi-final played over the best of 21 legs and the final played over 31 - that could almost have been designed to show the best of Taylor.

This format gives him the chance to dismantle an opponent, as we saw in 1999 when he blew Barney away in the £100,000 match at Wembley.

The stats, his attitude and his control over his new darts suggests that Taylor is better than ever, taking the game to places I never thought it could go. I never though I'd ever see a player regularly averaging between 105 and 111 as he has over the last three months.

Adrian Lewis is playing his mentor and I think it's lucky for him that the semi is only 21 legs.

He was 5-2 down against Peter Manley in Bournemouth and battled back for a draw and he came back from 13-10 down to beat Barney in the semi-final of the Matchplay in Blackpool last year. That suggests that he has a slight chance if he doesn't go too far behind because he's capable of winning three or four legs on the trot.

I think this could be a sensational game, but I think an 11-7 win for Taylor is on the cards.

James Wade v Raymond van Barneveld

Some of you might be surprised to hear I'm tipping James Wade to win this one.

Barney has beaten him twice this season, so on the face of it he should be the favourite, but James led the league for much of the season and I feel he could do it here, as he did against Roland Scholten in Blackpool two years ago when he won 19-17.

James has the perfect technique and fantastic concentration but the problem in his game is that he sometimes responds badly if he misses with his first dart.

In contrast to Taylor who always responds with a positive after a small negative, Wade sometimes suffers with his final two darts if the first one is wrong.

Of the four players Barney has the most fragile psyche. He tends to be at his best in day-to-day tournaments when he can get into a rhythm and a routine so Cardiff may not suit him.

He also seems to lose faith in himself at times. We saw it at Wembley in 1999 when he went 16-6 down to Taylor and started blobbing the darts at the board as if he didn't care.

When Taylor beat him 8-3 in Nottingham, Barney applauded him part of the way through the game which is something Taylor would never have done. It was nice, but that sort of thing breaks your concentration. Eric Bristow is the greatest darts philosopher ever and he says you should always be trying to bully the other guy.

He also has technical problems and tends to get over-anxious on the third-dart, wasting his last scoring shot at the 60.

James does seem to suffer from extreme nerves at times and this match might be decided by the most important muscle in a darts player's body - the one between their ears.

The winner will be the one who controls his gremlins better and I've got a feeling we could see the best of Wade in Cardiff so I'm predicting he'll win it 11-9.

The final

Taylor's best performances of the last three months have come against Wade, Barney, Lewis and Dennis Priestley and it seems that playing against class brings out the class in him.

Whoever he plays in the final I think Taylor will win 16-11.