Rock blames bathroom soap for poor Antwerp display

Josh Rock blamed his error-strewn display in last week’s 6-2 Premier League defeat by Michael van Gerwen in Antwerp on the soap he used in the bathroom before going on stage.

The 24-year-old was seen wiping his hands on his trousers multiple times and licking his fingers at one stage during the quarter-final contest.

Northern Ireland’s Rock believes his inability to grip the darts properly was caused by the soap and he has now sought to guard against it happening to him at future events by packing his own chalk and wax.

“I went to the toilet just before I went on stage and obviously you wash your hands after going to the toilet, so I put the soap all over my hands and the next minute I’m up there, and I was like, ‘This isn’t going to go well’,” he said.

“I just could not feel it at all. So now we’ve got a plan B, I’ve got a bit of chalk and wax in the case from now on.

“I didn’t have to use it this week at the Players Championship, it was fine, but it must have been the soap I used.

World number nine Rock admitted his natural reaction to his struggles against seven-time champion Van Gerwen was to “laugh straight away” because he “knew what the problem was”.

He has now put that performance down to misfortune and moved on as he prepares to take on world number two Luke Humphries in night three of the competition in Glasgow on Thursday before competing in front of a home crowd in Belfast on 26 February.

“If I played like that and didn’t know what the problem was then, obviously we have an issue,” he added.