"I thought you are an absolute dh": Daryl Gurney tries to refrain from swearing in scathing assessment of display

Daryl Gurney was pleased with the result but frustrated with parts of his performance after edging past Sebastian Bialecki at the European Darts Trophy, admitting he made the match harder than it needed to be.

Speaking after the contest in Gottingen, Gurney was quick to praise the atmosphere inside the arena, describing the crowd as a major positive despite the tense nature of the match. “No, honestly. This crowd has been absolutely amazing, it's just the players are making it difficult for themselves.”

However, the Northern Irishman acknowledged that he played his own part in letting the game tighten unnecessarily. After establishing control early on, Gurney admitted he allowed Bialecki back into the contest by handing away crucial legs.

“I did the exact same there, I gave away two legs to Sebastian (Bialecki) so I think even then I was still like 3-1 up and then I gave away two legs and it was 3-3. I thought you are an absolute dh...d***head.”

Despite that moment of frustration, Gurney eventually steadied himself and regained control of the match. Still, he admitted the missed opportunities on the doubles were particularly frustrating, especially when he had chances to take a decisive lead.

“All of a sudden I hit myself double eight and I thought you had six darts at double 16 to more or less break him, go in front and kill the game off.”

Instead of sealing the match comfortably, the former major champion joked that dart players have a habit of making things unnecessarily complicated.

“Normal dart players not the Premier League dart players, we like to make life difficult for ourselves and I definitely did there.”

In the end, Gurney managed to get the job done and progress to the next stage of the European Darts Trophy, though by his own admission it was far from the straightforward victory it might have been.