Sky Sports.com

Taylor: the best there is?

Dave Lanning turned to me and said: "Sid, we never thought the game could be mastered, but we are looking at the master."

Sid Waddell
Quotes of the week

PREMIER LEAGUE DARTS
Click here for listings

Also see

• Order of Merit
• On Sky TV
• Premier League Results/Fixtures
• Premier League Table

Whyte & Mackay Premier League Darts heads to Aberdeen this week after a dramatic night in Birmingham.

But it's Phil Taylor who continues to dominate Sid Waddell's thoughts...

Sid on Lewis v Taylor
Sid on Manley v Van Barneveld
Sid on Part v Mardle
Sid on Wade v Lewis

Lust for glory

I've rarely seen Phil Taylor as annoyed as he was when he walked past me after his draw with Terry Jenkins in Birmingham.

He was spitting chips because, even though he had a 102 average, he thought he'd played rubbish.

When I was a history student I studied warfare and one of the great books was about General Patton called 'Lust For Glory'. That came to mind because I think the lust for darting glory is Taylor's mantra.

His hunger to take his game to the nth degree is going to dominate darts, not only for the remaining weeks of the Darts Premier League, but until the 2009 World Championship.

Dave Lanning has been watching darts for longer than I have and I remember what he said as we witnessed Taylor beat John Part in Ireland in 2003 with a 105 average over 12 legs.

He turned to me and said: "Sid, we never thought the game could be mastered, but we are looking at the master."

That was in 2003 and now in the first week of April 2008, Taylor has taken the game to places that blow my mind.

When I first started watching darts, the room would erupt if there was a 180. Now Taylor is giving us nine-darters and 115 averages and his game is at a level that is making us commentators gasp.

Last week I was able to commentate by numbers during a Taylor 180. I said 'here's the tickle of tungsten, there's the perfect pitch, there's the perfect second and now the perfect third'. I was almost able to call the darts before they went in!

I think he's the greatest sportsman walking the planet at the moment. Tiger Woods mainly thinks about the majors and he doesn't focus as much on the secondary tournaments, but if Taylor is picked for the Dog and Duck team third team in Burslem, he'll try and average 110 and beat his opponent 8-0.

It's not in Taylor's nature to let his foot off the gas and I can't think of anyone in any other sport that has matched his streak of the last month.

He's proved he should be up there with Babe Ruth, Pele, Sir Donald Bradman and the greatest ever sportsmen.

And he doesn't start practising properly until mid-October before the World Championships so the mind boggles at what he can achieve by the end of the year!

Adrian Lewis v Phil Taylor

Adrian's climbing off his sickbed for this match and he's going to be lucky to take a single leg off Taylor.

On Saturday, Mark Frost was on a 10-darter to take a leg off him in Telford, but Taylor went out on a 126 to win the leg.

It doesn't matter if you're playing out of your skin, Taylor's still going to get you. In the final against Colin Lloyd, Taylor won the match 3-0 with an 11-darter.

On the Sunday, he beat Chris Mason in the quarters with a 107 average, he beat Barney in the semis with a 110 average and ominously for Adrian he won the final against Brendan Dolan 8-0.

He will be fired up by the anger of only getting a draw a week ago and he'll try to whitewash Adrian, who is not very good at chasing a game.

This match was supposed to be played last week and I thought a fully-fit Adrian at the top of his game might win because Taylor was due a glitch. In the end, his glitch was a 102 average against Jenkins and he'll be back to his incandescent best in Aberdeen.

My prediction is a 110 average and 8-2 to Taylor because right now the only guy that can beat The Power is himself.

Peter Manley v Raymond van Barneveld

Peter Manley is bottom of the table on six points and things are looking a bit ominous for him.

I tipped John Part to beat Barney last week, but the Dutchman ended up winning 8-6 with a 94 average. I think he's improving because he's playing more darts.

He's decided he needs to get as match fit as Taylor, who would fly to Venus to play darts if there was a midweek tournament going on. Barney needed more matches and he's started to do that.

As for Manley, he went 4-1 down to Mardle in Birmingham and that seemed to faze him a little bit. He had 21 ton-pluses in the match, but his doubles were nowhere near where they should be.

When he beat Taylor earlier in the season, Manley was doubling at 73 per cent at one stage, but we haven't seen that sort of form since then.

Manley's always going to be patchy because he tends to rock when he throws and his body weight isn't always in sync with his arm.

Barney will have benefited from playing more darts and I think he'll win this one 8-5.

John Part v Wayne Mardle

This is going to be the match of the night; it should be absolutely sensational.

Lewis v Taylor would normally be the game of the evening, but Lewis is not at 100 per cent, so this is the one I'm looking forward to.

Mardle has won three on the trot and I think he's got a good chance of ending the night in the top four of the table. Once upon a time that thought would have panicked him, but we're seeing a lot more maturity from him now.

What I liked last week were his finishes of 114 and 108 and he seems to have found the balance between playing up to the crowd and playing good darts.

In the 2005 Premier League he struggled to recover from two early hammerings at the hands of Taylor and in 2006 he didn't get a win until week nine.

Winning three on the spin is the best possible booster for him and even though he's playing the world champion, I think he'll win this 8-6 because he's grown up in this series.

James Wade v Adrian Lewis

As I write, I have a great picture in front of me of Wade and Lewis kissing each other after a match at the World Matchplay in Blackpool last summer.

Adrian is planting an enormous smacker on Wade's forehead and James looks like Daffy Duck with his eyes rolling all over the place because he'd just won the semi-finals.

Adrian averaged 101 in that match, but still lost 17-7 and I think that symbolised the arrival of the new guys in darts.

I wrote an article at the time saying 'look out for these two' and here we are today with them sat at number two and number four in the Premier League.

Wade has got a Tayloresque attitude in terms of self-criticism. He won with a 102 average in Birmingham, but didn't think he played very well.

It's part of his make-up to want to perform at the highest level and I think he's going to be a world champion within the next two years.

There is still an area where Wade needs to improve. If Taylor makes a mistake, he puts it right within a split-second, whereas James will brood on bad shots. That's a problem because you need to play with good vibes.

As for Adrian, we saw some typical Lewis in Glasgow a few weeks ago when he went 7-0 up against Jenkins, but only won 8-5. Sometimes he gets too excited and can't close a game out.

Wade and Taylor have got the best temperaments in the game, so neither will let Adrian get an early jump on them. Neither will let him have an inch and it's going to be very tough because he's got to play both of them in one night.

I'm putting this down as an 8-5 win for Wade.