"I probably do agree with Gary": Josh Rock looks back at Gary Anderson's rant to media about destroying his rise

Josh Rock won his latest Players Championship title this past week defeating Cameron Menzies 6-4. 'Rocky' openly admitted prior that Gary Anderson's rant two years ago about the media perhaps playing their part in his demise was true.

He also was open about his move to Target and being frustrated that he couldn't play with his new darts sooner, darts that are now paying dividends.

"Darts is going fantastic and this year is going fantastic so I can't complain," said Rock to Online Darts.

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"I got them just after the World Matchplay as a prototype, practicing with them and I was hitting everything with them and I was like why can't I throw with these now then you have to revert to what you were throwing with before.

"I do believe i would've had a better World Championship if I would've used them. It was the worst kept secret in darts."

The attention now is of course all on Luke Littler and Gary Anderson famously warned against turning him into another Josh Rock case where the Northern Irishman was hounded and interviewed constantly and lauded as the next big thing.

Only for as he said for him to lose in the opening round of the World's and not live up to his billing.but he has shown green shoots again.

"The build up to the World Championship the camera always panned on me. Fair enough it was the talking point at that time in my first year and then going into the second year, it was still kind of talking about me until that World Championship with Luke (Littler). I probably do agree with what Gary said because we were sitting in the players room and the camera just panned on you. I'm very close with Gary. He thinks the world of me which I really love. There's never a day that goes by when he doesn't say hello when he walks in. He understands what happened and how good I am."

"Luke Littler is one of my close friends too, we talk nearly everyday. But the kid is different. Never spoke about it as I got booted out the first round that year," he joked.

He will finally get to represent Northern Ireland also with Daryl Gurney this year in the World Cup after jumping the gun slightly on thinking he was teaming with him last year and it was Brendan Dolan.

"The way it went we were in Austria and we had the conversation. We knew how far Daryl was in front of Brendan, it was Brendan that actually beat Daryl to win the ProTour. As soon as the cut off happened, Daryl jumped above him. Me and Brendan had a good tournament together, I think I brought out a side he didn't think he had for the first time. You're playing for your country, you need to be passionate you need to be aggressive. This year I'm nearly 100% sure it's going to be Daryl and I think it's going to be the most aggressive team Northern ireland has ever had."

"Daryl's won majors, Brendan's been in major finals and obviously I'm the up and coming player so I think this is the strongest Northern Ireland has been."

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