Michael Smith: “When you’ve got other professionals trying to heckle you”

Week Six of Premier League Darts in Nottingham saw world number four Michael Smith reach a third final in two weeks.

It’s an incredible run of form which has seen him reach the final of week five in Brighton, having reached the final of the UK Open the previous Sunday.

After losing out to Gary Anderson, as the Flying Scotsman rolled back the years in a vintage performance, Bully Boy sat down with Phill Barrs and despite another good performance, he wasn’t too happy with events backstage.

“It’s getting there. It’s not too bad. When you’re about to go on and

Peter Wright says, ‘Good luck Gaz, he can’t win in a final’.

It’s one of them, I’ve won Shanghai and I’ve won other things but when you go on stage and you’ve got other professionals trying to heckle you when you go on and then Gaz played amazing up there.”

Michael Smith On Gary Anderson

Smith then expanded on the performance of Anderson and didn’t hold back regarding the Scot’s practice routine either.

“For someone who has not thrown a dart for six months, it wasn’t too shabby was it?

He practices every day and he knows when he’s playing me he steps up and he steps up. He talks absolute rubbish when he says he’s not thrown a dart.

If he doesn’t want to throw a dart and he wants to retire then stop turning up and stop taking invitations.”

Smith was keen to point out how well he felt his former mentor had played though.

“Going into that final game I thought, I’ll win this. Gary stepped up and played like he did.

He played amazing then and did the job in the end.”