Daryl Gurney’s odds slashed after show-stopping checkout

The Derry man is feeling good.

Daryl Gurney is on it and, when he's on it, darts looks piss easy. As the fourth seed going into the PDC World Darts Championships, the 31-year-old backed up the hype but he still needed a masterclass against Ronny Huybrechts to make the bookies start shitting themselves. After disposing of the Belgian 3 sets to 1, Daryl Gurney booked his place in the second round against either John Henderson of Scotland or Finland's Marko Kantele. It meant that his odds shifted to win the whole thing from as long as 40/1 in some outlets right down to 28/1 which is still serious value when you look at what Daryl Gurney has done this year. 2017

• PDC World Championship: quarter-final
• Grand Slam of Darts: quarter-final
• Players Championship Finals: quarter-final
• UK Open: semi-final
• World Matchplay: semi-final
• US Darts Masters: runner-up
• World Grand Prix: winner

Throughout this year, Daryl Gurney really has marked himself out as one of the big fish and he has done it consistently. And, with Huybrechts needing just 32 to check out in the fourth set, Gurney destroyed him with a ridiculous 170 three-darter that brought Ally Pally to its feet and drew applause from the opponent. https://twitter.com/OfficialPDC/status/942875708342255616 Daryl Gurney looks like he's enjoying himself. The crowd are enjoying that. He's enjoying results. The sad thing for the darts world is that Gurney is not on a collision course with his old foe Phil Taylor. Taylor went off on an astonishing rant about the Derry native just four weeks ago because he didn't pour him water. He called Gurney a "disrespectful little shit" and claimed that he is not the future of darts. If they were to meet in this, the last World Championships for Taylor, they'd have to do it in the New Year's Day final. To do that though, Daryl Gurney would have to overcome the insurmountable Michael van Gerwen who put him to the sword last Christmas in the quarter-finals. He did take the Dutch man for six sets in the US Masters final but it's still a tall order - one which is no doubt affecting his outright odds. https://twitter.com/OfficialPDC/status/942891523661860865