Luke Littler on being boring and binning friendships as he walks in Wonderland
Luke Littler reckons Gary Anderson got it right saying some players are boring as he walks in Phil Taylor's Wonderland.
But The Nuke is adamant he'll be feisty as friendship goes right out of the window when he meets Josh Rock in the chase for the darts Triple Crown.
Littler came through a contest with quiet-man Andrew Gilding to reach the last four and had time for a cheeky quip afterwards.
The Scot had said earlier in the week that a generation of players are dull away from the stage and Littler smiled: 'I don't think he's a big talker, Andrew, a lot of us players, we just got on with our thing and like Gary Anderson said, we're boring, so that's what we do.'
Littler is just two games from lifting the Betfred World Matchplay to add to the World Championship and Premier League titles he has already bagged. The teenager admits he thinks about sealing that Triple Crown in Blackpool and said: 'It's going to be on my mind until I win it, but since day one here, you can only beat what's in front of you and you've got to take it game by game. I've said quite a few times, for us players and especially myself, there's not a lot of time to look back on what I've done, but I know deep down what I have done in the past and what I've done leading up to now, and long may it continue.'
Littler got a famous chant directed to him towards the end of the Gilding game and it struck a chord. For over two decades, the song about Walking in Phil Taylor's Wonderland reverberated around the Winter Gardens as The Power controlled the tournament.
That's now changed to Littler's Wonderland and he said: 'It means everything, I'm pretty sure it first started at my first World Championships, but just hearing the song and, obviously, after a great legend that Phil is, he's been here plenty of times, won it 16, and I'm really looking forward to the semi-final.'
Littler found the right rhythm to beat methodical Gilding and explained: 'The game with me and Jermaine [Wattimena], we get on with it, we're both quick players, but when you're playing someone like Andrew, he's not going to change for anyone, no matter who you are, he'll always do the same thing, throw by throw, dart by dart.
'But I just had to get myself into a rhythm, not throw it too quick, not throw it too slow, I think I pulled a fair few darts into the ones and the small 20s throughout that game, but the cover shots were there for me.'
Litter now meets his mate Rock in the semis and said: 'Josh has been on the tour for many years, been on the youth tour for many years, we've been good friends now for quite a while. He's been playing really good darts for quite a few months.
'Rab Bain, his manager, he's got quite a few plays with Target and then we all go to a Target day, we all meet up, speak to each other and that's how it [friendship] comes about. I don't think it really matters who you play, whether you're friends or not, because as soon as you're on the stage, you're no-one's friend, you're there to do a job.'
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