The engaging new darts world champion belies his fist-pumping image as the pantomime villain of the oche: ‘There’s going to be a big target on my back but I can’t wait to rise to the challenge’
‘I’m still quite a shy person, even though you probably wouldn’t think that,” Gerwyn Price says quietly while offering a little smile in acknowledgement of his public persona as the roaring, fist-pumping and swaggering new world champion of darts. Price still retains the physique of his previous occupation, which ended in 2014 when he switched sports from professional rugby to darts. The 35-year-old displayed much of the combative steeliness and aggression that coursed through him when he played hooker as he dominated the PDC world darts championship and crushed his old rival Gary Anderson 7-3 in the final this month.
His victory was no surprise, for it continued Price’s inexorable rise to the summit of darts in a dizzyingly short space of time. He is now the world No 1, but rather than revel in his remarkable transformation Price seems more interested in analysing his own complex character. “When I played rugby for Cross Keys and Neath [in the Welsh Premier League] and then in Glasgow [in the Pro12] I always had to sit at the back of the room when we did video analysis. I used to hate speaking. They’d ask me: ‘What do you think we should have done in this part of the game?’ I’d be like …”