Mighty Mike lands magic treble to KO brave Bully

MICHAEL VAN GERWEN clinched his third PDC world title at the Ally Pally last night.

Riding out the brief storm of his fourset lead being cut in half, Van Gerwen sealed the William Hill world crown with a 7-3 win over Michael Smith.

It was not a classic final. In keeping with much of the tournament, it was a let-down like the punchlines in your Christmas cracker jokes. But Van Gerwen, the best player by far in an event which takes longer than the Olympic Games, deservedly became the first champion to win a third PDC crown since Phil Taylor 22 years ago.

He has averaged 100plus in 19 consecutive matches and although his going rate of

102.21 was at the lower end of his scoring power, it was good enough.

Smith (inset), who has never won a TV major, suffered from stage fright and didn’t start playing until he was

4-0 down.

If he is as nervous and ham-fisted when he gets married on Saturday, he will drop the rings and get his vows wrong.

For long periods of a mismatch so disappointing that the first half was an ordeal to watch, the huddled masses at the Alexandra Palace fell eerily quiet.

The Dutchman we can deal with in short measure. After Taylor, he is going to be the greatest player of all time.

But for poor Smith, orange is the new bleak. Every time he gets near the treasure chest, he finds Van Gerwen in his way.

In the Premier League play-off final last May, MVG averaged a monster 112 and blew him away

11-4. And he came up well short again here.

In the first final between two players under 30 since Keith Deller’s sensational

138 checkout toppled Eric Bristow 36 years ago, Smith scattered his darts across the target like a bag of nails falling out of the attic.

Cheered to the rafters during the walk-on preliminaries, his body language betrayed him.

Too often he was a portrait of frustration – drooping shoulders, shaking head, muttering sweet nothings to his entourage and buckling under pressure. For a player nicknamed ‘Bully Boy’ it was ominous when Smith lost the closest-to-bullseye shoot-out backstage for the right to throw first.

It was even more forbidding for the underdog when Van Gerwen took out 129 on the bull to open his account. And when Smith missed 10 of his first 13 shots at a double, allowing Van Gerwen to chalk up a 2-0 lead, the writing was on the wall. Giving Van Gerwen a two-set advantage is like giving Lewis Hamilton half a lap advantage in a Grand Prix – he disappears over the horizon.

Once MVG had gone 4-0 in front, it was not a question of whether he would wear the crown again, it was only whether he would dish out a first whitewash in the final since Taylor left Peter Manley at the starting gate in 2006.

When Smith squandered four darts to reduce the deficit to 3-1, we feared it was more likely than possible.

At least he summoned the courage to knock out 124 and break his duck. And before you knew it, back-to-back bullseye finishes had halved the deficit to 4-2.

But Van Gerwen soon recovered his composure, and the title.