Price’s former rugby league coach on World Championship victory: “That's unbelievable and what a great story it is for him”

Gerwyn Price claimed the 2021 PDC World Darts Championship this past weekend as he completed the feat of going from professional rugby player to going to the peak of darts.

Dave Clark, who at one time coached Price for South Wales Scorpions back in 2013 didn’t know about Price’s rise and so was shocked to see the former rugby player reach the top in darts.

"I got a text message off someone who lives locally to me saying 'do you remember this player?'," Clark told Sky Sports.

"I said 'Yeah, I do - why?' and he said 'Oh, he's in the final tomorrow of the World Darts Championship'. I said, 'You're joking!'.

"Then someone got in touch and said he'd won it and I was like 'Oh my God!'."

He also discussed what Price was like and how compared to his Oche persona he was quiet as well as comparing his career path from rugby to darts.

"He wasn't really a boisterous person at training, he was quiet, just got on with his job and was really professional in what he did," Clark added.

"He played through the middle, so his mentality was quite tough, and he was strong to handle the contact and physicality of the game. He was a great kid, pleasant and a really good professional.

"Someone was telling me about him playing darts who'd watched him a few times and said he liked a bit of banter and likes to wind up the other players - how funny is that?"

"He's taken a good career path and a positive one," Clark said. "World Darts Champion in seven years? That's unbelievable and what a great story it is for him.

"To go from rugby union to rugby league then back to rugby union, then go to something like darts, it's not like a team sport.

"It's quite singular in that you're your own responsibility, your focus is more individual and if you make a mistake it's more on yourself rather than collectively as a team.

"He's gone in a totally different direction from a team sport, and it just shows what you can do when you focus and concentrate. Look what's he's done for himself - it's fantastic."