Randall wrote:Speak of the devil.
Evening mate.
Evening.
I believe Taylor had a very big average in a Dutch TV final against Barneveld around 2011.
Van Gerwen against Barneveld in the semi finals of the 2017 World Championship had a 114 end average after 8 sets of darts, and Barney 109. I think that was van Gerwen's greatest performance of his career.
Van Gerwen has much of what Taylor had at his best, but to be where Taylor is all time he is going to have to keep doing what he's doing for at least another 10 years, through ups and downs and life changes, where he keeps winning most TV tournaments. The World Championship and World Matchplay are what people are going to look at first and foremost. At the moment, Taylor has a double 16, and van Gerwen has a double 2. Before looking at Taylor, I think van Gerwen needs to first make himself the clear second best of all time, which he probably will be when he gets 5 World Championships and 5 World Matchplays. Taylor will still be miles ahead even then.
Taylor has set the best targets possible for van Gerwen. The standard is the highest it can be. The biggest challenge of all isn't the averages, it's the longevity of the dominance. So far, van Gerwen has impressed me with how he doesn't let some painful defeats demoralize him from continuing his dominance from week to week.