Luke Humphries send message to darts rivals after Luke Littler claim | Other | Sport

Luke Humphries has told darts’ upstarts he is still one of the game’s ‘big two’ with Luke Littler. Having gone into the World Championship looking to regain his place as world number one at the expense of the Nuke, Cool Hand now has Gian van Veen breathing down his neck in the PDC Order of Merit.

It was Van Veen who sent Humphries packing in the quarter-finals at Alexandra Palace. Van Veen and another rising star, Josh Rock, are getting ready to enter the Premier League cauldron for the first time and are seen as the biggest threat to the supremacy of the two Lukes, who have ruled the darting world between them over the last two years. But Humphries, 30, insists they still have somewhere before joining him and Littler in the elite of the elite bracket.

“I still think it is about the two of us,” said Humphries, who thrashed Van Veen at the recent World Masters before losing to Littler in the final. “For someone else to come into that mix, you’ve got a lot to prove. You can’t make a couple of finals and, all of a sudden, it’s three people.

“You’ve got to consistently do it for many major tournaments. Over the last two and a half years, I’ve made like 16 major finals and I think Luke has made the same.

“Someone else has got to make 16 major finals, then they can say, ‘OK, I’m in that mix.’ I still think me and Luke are the two best players in the world consistently.

“Gian has definitely shown that he can challenge us and be a part of that league. There are definitely two of us at the top who are consistent. There are 10 players who are just as good, they just need to perform at a consistent level, as we have.”

Van Veen and Rock’s consistency and stamina will be tested during a marathon Premier League season, which begins in early February and concludes in late May. Humphries added: “For the new players who aren’t used to it, they’ll enjoy the first year. In the second and third years, it gets tougher.

“The new Premier League players think they’re going to play in everything but you’re not going to. You’re going to have to miss tournaments and you’re going to get burnout, so it’ll be interesting to see how they’re going to handle it.

“They’re going to learn how tough it is. When you’re playing in every World Series event, every Premier League night, every European Tour event, like some of them think they’re going to do, they’ll find out that burnout does happen.

“After the Worlds, you just think you’re going to keep going but it doesn’t happen like that. It does take a lot out of you. People like Josh and Gian will learn that you can’t do everything.

“I spoke to Gian the other week and I said, ‘What are you going to miss?’ He said, ‘I’m going to do every Euro Tour.’ I said, ‘You probably won’t because you’ll realise halfway through it that it’s a lot tougher than people think.’

“But I think they’ll do really well. They’re young, they’re healthy and that’s what’s important. If you’re young, fit and healthy, you should be able to do most things.

“I’m not as young as them anymore, so I have to try and pick and choose what I do. I think I’ve got it sussed now but it takes a bit of time to understand that.”

Humphries goes into the Premier League as the defending champion after defeating Littler in last year’s final at The O2. He regards winning the tournament as one of his biggest achievements since becoming one of the sport’s elite talents.

“It’s in the top three,” he said. “Winning the Worlds is first, Matchplay second, Premier League third and World Cup fourth. It’s something I’d love to retain. This year, there are a lot heavy scorers in there, so it’s going to be tough.”