And then there were two. Michael Van Gerwen versus Phil Taylor. The young pretender against the king. The future of darts against the present.

After 70 games of darts, it has come down to this. In a tournament which has gone to form to such a degree that sees the bookmakers laughing all the way to the bank, the two pre-tournament favourites have risen to the top. With both hitting top form at the right time, few are reluctant to pick a winner.

Van Gerwen is undoubtedly the future of darts. The Grand Prix champion was tipped by many but backed by few to make it to this stage. But the young Dutchman has continued to raise eyebrows in his ruthless march to the final. Despite early hiccups against Peter Wright, he powered back to win 4-2 having been 2-0 down. Avoiding a potential banana skin by hitting Colin Lloyd with a Tour de Force, he entered into his quarter-final showdown with reigning champion Adrian Lewis slight favourite. What followed was magic. Mighty Mike showed courage and composure in what many view as one of the greatest darts matches ever seen. That was the game that we realised that the Dutch prodigy has come of age. It was going to take more than raw darting ability to dethrone Lewis, who was on an amazing run of 15 games unbeaten on the Alexandra Palace stage. Hitting big scores and nailing your doubles is all well and good until you are doing it against a reigning champ hot on the trail of a third consecutive world title. World Championship pedigree is not something you can develop on the practice board; you either have it or you don’t. We have seen many great players who have won several majors lacking in this come Christmastime. Wade and Whitlock both seem to suffer from a lack of this x-factor. And it looked for a while that Van Gerwen was found wanting too, failing to put Lewis away with feeble doubling. But the turning point came when he put his troubles behind him, nailing a double ten to capture the third set. Lewis upped his game but the Dutchman was able for it, defeating the champion in a nail-biting final set.

If there were fireworks in his quarter final, the semi-final was like a Blitzkrieg. MVG hit a 9 dart finish to set the crowd alight, before going agonisingly close to hitting an unprecedented second consecutive perfect leg. The bookies were offering odds of 50,000/1 for it to be done on the night. You can back it happening at 25/1 in the final. Credit to Wade for hanging in there, but eventually there was no stopping the 23 year-old. Van Gerwen is rewriting the record books, but he will not settle until he has his name etched onto the Sid Waddell Trophy.

The Power has taken a more low-key path to the final. Going into the tournament as slight favourite, he was feeling confident, saying that he was throwing better than ever on the practice board. In contrast to MVG and Barney, Taylor plays the opponent rather than the board. He does enough to win, hitting the right doubles at the right times, whereas others have hit averages which resemble telephone numbers in the opening rounds. Working his way into the last 16 without any major hassle, he easily brushed Robert Thornton and Andy Hamilton aside without dropping a set. Cue Barney; A war of words broke out before the match, and it is clear that the Stoke-on-Trent man came out on top. Van Barneveld appeared dishevelled in the opening exchanges and didn’t settle into the game until it was all but lost at 5-1. He rallied admirably but the 15-time champion did enough to close out the match.

What happened next made all the headlines. Taylor failed to come down off the tension of the match and shrugged off the Dutchman’s sporting gesture. Van Barneveld spoke out afterwards to shed light on the incident.

"I was in a sportsmanlike manner and tried to congratulate him on stage and when he pushed me away. I understood nothing of it and wanted to hug him.

He said F*** off and I didn't understand. What inspires the man to push me away?”

Taylor immediately came out to apologise.

"I reacted disgracefully and I feel terrible… I’m ashamed because I really like Raymond but he hurt me a little bit, that was all it was… It was spur of the moment."

Who was in the right or wrong is irrelevant though. What matters now is that Phil Taylor is in the PDC World Championship final and Raymond Van Barneveld is going back to The Hague.

And then there were two. Michael Van Gerwen versus Phil Taylor. What is expected is the greatest darts match of all time. The bookmakers are standing on the fence on this one. And you can’t blame them. Enjoy.

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About the author
Brian Barry
Student and Sports Journalist. Follow on Twitter @briangbarry Contact at [email protected]