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If you enjoy a ding-dong battle for a bridesmaid’s bouquet, then I suggest you lock your senses on to the Premier League Darts and its worshipped bar flies as the tournament reaches its climax over the next two weeks.
This eight-player league from the UK pits the elite masters of darts in a 14-week test of accuracy and endurance for sharp-shooting glory and fame.
Think of it’s footballing cousin, except less glitz, coin and fitness, and sometimes under the duress of a lager hangover.
It’s popularity in the Mother Country is intoxicating, and frankly I can see why.
Who wouldn’t love the sight of a couple of beefy blokes trying to navigate small projectiles onto a tiny target while dealing with the obstruction of their own portliness?
I would love to say that the race for the top gong is going down to the wire, but that would be a porky-pie as big as the gap Phil “The Power” Taylor has over the chasing pack.
He currently holds a nine-point advantage over second place and a whopping 51+ leg difference, and it appears that only some kind of unforeseen darting mishap is going to stop the copy-and-paste engraving of his name on the tin prize again.
However, those that live for a choir-rocked roller-coaster shouldn’t stress. The oche is alight and the flights are flaming amongst the also-rans as the race to be crushed by the Guv’ of Darts in the final becomes tighter than a strictly-tied Simon Whitlock plait.
And speaking of our sulphur-crested Aussie hero, he is poised nicely to be the chosen lamb to the Taylor slaughter.
Destiny sits snugly in his hands as he’s currently perched in the box seat of outright second spot on 14 points.
Pursuing him is a ravenous five-man herd of spear-wielding geezers, who will be facing off in a magnificent arrangement of white knuckle sudden-death matches next week to decide the last two finals spots.
James Wade, Adrian Lewis and Raymond van Barneveld are grouped together on 12 points with Premier League L-platers Kevin Painter and Andy Hamilton breathing down their necks on 11.
This fatefully glorious outcome that has left these warriors within a thread of each other means nothing but damn good times for dart enthusiasts next Friday morning.
I suggest a reduction in your usual levels of dawn coffee as the meet at Newcastle’s Metro Radio Arena is going to have your heart already palpitating with three out of the four fixtures in the final round having a stake in how the semi-final picture will materialise.
The showdown for playoff berths commences with the rookie battle between Hamilton (leg difference -7) and Painter (-5) with both requiring the taste of victory to advance.
This is followed by Dutch veteran van Barneveld (-11) against the ever-ballooning Wade (-6) and then the dangerously erratic Lewis (-6) locking horns with whisker fashionista Whitlock (-3).
I hope you all have an abacus and/or calculator at hand, as there’s no way my two-unit maths brain is capable of mapping out all of the scenarios that could play out on the night.
The only thing I can assure is a super-charged spin cycle of high stakes darts ending with two grinners and three evictees.
Just tune in, and if in doubt, whack on the cork-hat and unleash the boorish passion for our blonde sharp-shooter from Cessnock.
Let’s see if we can get him over the line for semi-respectable silver and really put darts on the map here in Oz.
But boofhead patriotism aside, whatever the result on the night and whichever tattooed contestants prevail, I have a message for the Director of Darts Fate and Fortune department, whoever they are and wherever they may be.
You really deserve a tall warm pint of lager and a dedicated rendition of ‘Chase the Sun’ in your honour for placing the Premier League tiles down in this extraordinary fashion.
Determination of the minor placings in Premier League 2012 is going to be one for the ages.