Coverage of the Premier League continues on Thursday, March 12 from M&S Bank Arena, Liverpool at 7pm on Sky Sports Action with Rob Cross taking on local hero Stephen Bunting
Wednesday 11 March 2020 20:32, UK
'The standard is so good now,' says Daryl Gurney as the battle to avoid elimination hots up in the tightest Premier League anyone can remember
Right now, Superchin occupies ninth place, and he has his sights on eighth-placed Rob Cross, who he drew against last week in Exeter.
They are past the halfway point in Phase One of the Premier League, and those scrapping at the bottom of the table have four games left to avoid elimination.
It was a match that the two-time major champ was targeting, but ultimately he was unable to pick up his first win of the campaign.
"My main objective was to try and beat Rob," Gurney told The Darts Show podcast.
"It didn't matter if it was a good, bad or ugly game. Just as long as I try to beat him, get two points and put me on even par with him. And then the rest of the weeks, we'd see what happens from there.
"If we were on the same points, I'd say whatever he's on, I've got to beat it."
As ideal as it sounded in theory, Gurney was not able to execute it in practice, and he continues to lose pace behind the peloton, he is two points adrift of Cross, but Voltage is only a couple of points of the top four and only thre ebehind top of the table Glen Durrant,
"Honestly I haven't given up on the Premier League yet. I'm playing well. I'm still getting the confidence back. And hopefully, in Liverpool I can get two points," he said.
He has cause for optimism, after an impressive run at the UK Open last weekend which saw him reach the semi-final.
"[It was] a confidence-builder for me," he said. "I was struggling at the back end of last year...in the Players Championship [Finals], the World Championship and stuff like that. I'm still trying to get my feet back on the ground again, concentrate and play the best I can, and get the confidence back up.
"The last few weeks I played really well, even in the Premier League. I should have been guaranteed a draw against Michael Smith, but I blew that opportunity.
"I'm still trying to look at the positives, it's hard whenever you're getting beat."
Nonetheless, he is putting those defeats at the hands of the world's elite into context:
"There's a Premier League player that I used to know very well. When he got beat every week in the Premier League, he used to be really down about it. And I thought to myself, 'you're getting beat by a top 10 player in the world, you're not getting beat by the 110th person in the world'.
"I'm just going to take the same attitude. Whatever happens in the rest of the Premier League, it happens.
"I'd love to avoid relegation, but if it comes to that, it comes to that. The standard is so good now, you just have to - pardon the pun - take it on the chin."
Meanwhile, Gurney's main opponent when it comes to avoiding the drop is Rob Cross. Voltage is not in as precarious a position, trailing league leader Glen Durrant by just three points, but has endured some frustrating performances in recent weeks.
However, he knows he is slowly getting there after transformations to his lifestyle which included a significant weight loss.
"It's really weird. I probably feel the best that I've felt for the last three years," said Cross.
"I feel alive again, I've got loads of energy. I feel like I'm 21 again to be honest!
"I go on the treadmill every day, do a few weights and sort of keep myself fit now.
"I think in the last two or three months, I've changed everything but I feel so much better for it. And maybe my results haven't reflected that yet, but when it does click, I'm going to be better than ever."
When it does click, I'm going to be better than ever!
It has been been a strange 12 months for the former world champion. While not hitting his best form for any sustained period of time, he has delivered some major results, including titles at the World Matchplay and European Championship.
"You want to make yourself as consistent as you can," he explained. "Hence the lifestyle change - start looking after myself, start getting up in the morning and feeling brilliant in myself.
"For me, it was a big part of it. On those longer days, I was getting fatigued by the end of the day. You play three or four matches in a day at a European [Tour event] for instance, and I'd make the semi or I'd make the final, and then there was nothing else to give.
"It definitely had to change, because you don't give yourself the best chance of winning when it's like that."
He is not giving up just yet on a top-four finish in the Premier League.
"That's all that matters," he said. "And to be honest, when I played with it in my first year, I had a very slow start. I probably lost as many games as I have now. I'm not in a bad place, and it's never sort of over really. Just turn the form around, get in there and start enjoying it a little bit more, getting up there and keep doing what I'm doing."
You can listen to the full interviews with Gurney and Cross on the latest episode of The Darts Show podcast.
Check out daily Darts news on skysports.com/darts, our app for mobile devices and our Twitter account @skysportsdarts.
Coverage of the Premier League continues on Thursday, March 12 from M&S Bank Arena, Liverpool at 7pm on Sky Sports Action with Rob Cross taking on local hero Stephen Bunting.
Don't forget, the Premier League is on every Thursday all the way through until the Play-Offs in London on May 21.
