Luke Littler took aim at the match referee after crowd whistling tainted his Premier League final clash with Luke Humphries. ‘The Nuke’ took the honours in a tight contest, battling back from 5-4 down to win the final two legs and seal a 6-5 win in Glasgow.
However, the contest was overshadowed by frequent whistling in the crowd, which seemed to disrupt both players in the latter stages.
The culprit was making the noise as each star was throwing at the board, with official Kirk Bevins intervening several times to hand out warnings on the microphone.
But the announcements made little difference, and after his win, Littler suggested that Bevins had only served to exacerbate the situation. “Yeah it was a weird final, we both weren’t playing well,” he said.
“Now and again, I’d look up at the screen and we’re both on a 90 average, it was a weird game. Obviously the crowd got involved, Kirk made them worse I think.
“And when I was 5-4 up I was just thinking ‘break him’. But I’ve done well for it, checked out with a 10-darter and an 11-darter, so that was crucial.”
Humphries meanwhile, looked seething in the aftermath, and was seen pointedly looking in the direction of the audience. But he was still magnanimous towards Littler, who had come back from 5-1 down to beat Rob Cross in the opening match of the evening.
He followed that up with a comfortable win over Michael van Gerwen. And ‘The Nuke’ acknowledged his form had been inconsistent over the three matches.
“Getting past Rob, just to come out of that was unbelievable,” he admitted. “It’s all down to myself, taking me up to 104 or 105 average. I felt really confident against Michae but the final… just a weird, weird game.”
It was Littler’s first tournament win since winning his maiden world title at Alexandra Palace last month. And after his indifferent form, the decision to use new darts for the meeting in Glasgow ultimately paid off.
“You’ve just got to keep going, but the Pro Tour’s evolved,” he said. “Good match practice and that’s where I thought… come here tonight using them, thrown really well in the practice bar and then when I went 5-1 down against Rob, I had to pull it out of the bag and I did.”
