Luke Littler admitted he is “still learning not to react to the fans” after silencing the Dublin boo-boys with an astonishing comeback in the latest round of Premier League action.<\/p>\n
While the biggest jeers of the night were reserved for Northern Ireland’s Josh Rock, whose every throw was booed as his miserable Premier League form continued, Littler also drew the ire of the crowd.<\/p>\n
But Littler, who hit out at hecklers following a win over Rob Cross at the PDC World Championship in December, had the last laugh after coming from 5-0 down in the final to beat Welshman Gerwyn Price 6-5.<\/p>\n
After avoiding a whitewash, Littler celebrated sarcastically and then when trailing 5-1 waved goodbye only for Price to miss three match darts before the teenager produced a remarkable turnaround.<\/p>\n
“I’ve definitely learnt a lot, especially with the fans,” the 19-year-old told a press conference.<\/p>\n
“In the first game against (Stephen) Bunting I didn’t give anything to the fans, I didn’t give any reaction and got the job done.<\/p>\n
“It was the same in the final when I was 5-0 down, everyone doubted me, I definitely doubted myself but I had a little laugh and a joke. I was just having a bit of fun because I knew I was beaten.<\/p>\n
“I’m still learning not to react to the fans. I didn’t do much then, only for the first leg, and then I can build on it. It is what it is, people want to see new winners but I’ve won again.”<\/p>\n
Price also missed doubles when leading 5-3 and 5-4 and was edged out in a last-leg decider by Littler, who came from 5-3 down to defeat Dutchman Michael Van Gerwen in thrilling fashion in the semi-final.<\/p>\n
But asked what was going through his mind when trailing 5-0 to Price, Littler said: “I’m out the game, I’m gone. Hit the first leg, give it a bit to the fans, I think they wanted a 6-0 and Gez definitely would have wanted a 6-0.<\/p>\n
“Then Gez set up a tops, I hit a 180 and waved the fans ‘goodbye’ because in my head I’m done – when Gezzy is sat on tops, he doesn’t usually miss. From then, I just lost track and don’t remember much.”<\/p>\n
Rock’s 6-0 defeat to Price at the start of the night means the Premier League debutant is without a win after seven nights although he hit a nine-darter against Gian van Veen in Belfast three weeks ago.<\/p>\n
“It’s not going to plan with Josh but he definitely deserves to be here,” Littler added. “Hopefully Josh can get a grip off the format and the Premier League very soon.”<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Littler has made an application with the Intellectual Property Office to trademark his face.<\/p>\n
The application will prevent fake products powered by AI using his picture without permission and breaking copyright laws, the Press Association understands.<\/p>\n
The teenager, who has won back-to-back World Championship titles, is highly marketable and his face appears on a wide variety of branded products – from his own dart board to computer games and bags of nuts.<\/p>\n
Littler has already trademarked his “the Nuke” nickname in the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luke Littler admitted he is “still learning not to react to the fans” after silencing the Dublin boo-boys…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-356648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}