PRICE TAKES VICTORY IN DUBLIN

By Phil Lanning

GERWYN PRICE admits that Luke Littler fires him up for glory. 

The Welshman went up to second in the Premier League after beating Nathan Aspinall 6-3 in a hard-fought final at the 3Arena. 

Price, 39, delivered his fifth successive win over The Nuke to open the night and he admitted that playing the teen sensation gets the best out of him.

He revealed: “It was a great night for me. I started off really well. I am not sure what it is but Luke Littler seems to bring the best out of me. Gives me a gee up and gets me going.

“A really decent game to come through. The crowd partly got me through the game against Luke Humphries. 

“It felt like I was playing in Cardiff again, which was nice. When you come up against Luke and Luke at their best, you do need the scoring and the checking out. 

“I finished the game against Luke Littler with a 102, it’s a good game, but not super. 

“You need to perform at a better standard if you want to win majors. Five vital points for me and gives me a boost heading into Exeter where I play Luke Humphries again.

“In the first game against Luke, I said to him when he came on, ‘your walk-on is probably better than Nathan’s’ – because it’s bouncing in here’. Probably got me geed up as well. 

“Those little bits of atmosphere can get you going. That certainly did. From that moment forward, I didn’t feel like I was going to lose tonight. I came through the final against Nathan.”

It pushed The Iceman up above Michael van Gerwen and Littler in the table, behind World No.1 Luke Humphries, who remains the league leader. 

In the final Price delivered the first break with a slick ‘Shanghai’ 120 finish to lead 2-1. Aspinall fought back and it was soon all-square at 3-3. However the Welshman pulled clear again and finished in style.

Earlier in the night, last week’s winner in Glasgow Luke Littler crashed out to Price. 

The Nuke went down 6-4, which was a FIFTH successive defeat to the Welshman. 

He said later: “Not the way I wanted to follow up the win last week. But loads more darts to play starting with Premier League and UK Open next week. Appreciate everyone who came out to support tonight.”

Stephen Bunting suffered a third consecutive defeat to Humphries and Aspinall dumped out an out of sorts Rob Cross with a 6-3 win. MVG ground out a 6-4 victory over the in-form Chris Dobey.

In the semis Price beat Humphries 6-3 with Asp delivering the same score over MVG.