Daryl Gurney bites back at '˜grumpy' Phil Taylor

DARYL Gurney has hit back at Phil '˜The Power' Taylor, claiming the 16 times PDC World Darts champion is 'history' and has overstayed his welcome in the sport!

Taylor accused the Derry ace of showing a ‘lack of respect’ for not pouring him a glass of water ahead of their ‘bwin Grand Slam of Darts’ quarter-final at the Wolves Civic on Saturday.

The legendary thrower, who is retiring at the end of the year after dominating the sport for the past 25 years, insisted he wanted to ‘teach him a lesson’ and called Gurney a ‘disrespectful little s**t’.

Taylor went on to inflict a heavy 16-4 defeat on Gurney in the quarter-finals, claiming 12 successive legs in a relentless charge into the last four where he lost out to Michael van Gerwen.

And now Gurney has bitten back, declaring he will be glad to see the back of Taylor who, he believes, is getting ‘too old and grumpy’ to compete at the highest level.

“I always said he was the master and said nothing bad about him but, when he beats me, he still says bad stuff,” said the Waterside man.

“I’ve never said anything bad about him. I just didn’t pour him water. I always said he was the greatest, the best and a legend.

“But as far as I’m concerned now I only have to look at him for one more tournament and then he’s retiring at the end of the Worlds. I might not be the future of darts but he’s definitely the past and I’m happy about that!

“I’m sure he wishes he was 20 years younger but the standard today is much better than the standard when he was winning everything in the ‘90s. He was the only person who could do 100 averages and everyone else was averaging 95 or 96 so that’s probably why he won so easily.

“He’s going to retire now which is a good decision because I think he’s just getting old and grumpy and looking to pick fights with random players.”

Explaining the ‘water incident’, the 2017 World Grand Prix champion referred to it as the ‘biggest load of crap you’ve heard in your life’.

“I think he was just playing mind games with me initially but even after the game he was still talking about it.

“I knew he was never going to beat Michael van Gerwen anyway so he put all his eggs in one basket trying to get to the semi-finals.

“He had nothing left after my game. He was complaining about me not pouring him water but the first person to walk on stage normally pours the water and he was first on and didn’t pour any water,” explained Gurney.

“I just assumed he didn’t want any so just poured my own. Every player does it out of respect and he just picked up on that when he played me.

“He played Michael in the next game and was first on stage and there was no problem with him pouring the water because he knew he did wrong the first time.

“He was just trying to get the extra motivation and talk s the biggest load of crap you’ve ever heard in your life.”

Taylor made the claim that the PDC wouldn’t be anywhere without him but Gurney believes otherwise.

“Maybe the PDC wouldn’t have as big a profile if it wasn’t for him but the PDC definitely doesn’t need Phil. Phil didn’t make the PDC, the PDC made Phil!

“He thought if he was to retire the PDC would be finished but now he’s learned the PDC doesn’t need him and the standard and depth from the top names down to the youths is unbelieveable.

“He’s just a bit of the past now and the PDC can move on and improve without him.”