Garry Plummer: The man behind Phil Taylor's darts reinvention

If you've watched Premier League Darts over the last 15 weeks then you'll probably have noticed Phil Taylor pointing towards the crowd and waving at somebody called Garry.

Commercially, the impact was immediate with Target's website and the site of one of the major darts retailers crashing on the day Taylor's new darts went on sale. Shops were selling a month's worth of stock in two days when the darts were launched in February. But The Power did not enjoy such a good start with his new tools. He lost his opening Premier League match 7-0 to Michael van Gerwen and lost two of his next three games in the competition before being dumped out of the UK Open by TV debutant Aden Kirk. However, Plummer said that they always expected teething problems as Taylor adjusted to his new arrows, especially after taking some time away from darts in January to focus on losing weight in Portugal. "He said to me something along the lines of 'I might lose the first couple and this might take a couple of months'. "His lack of confidence was the dart because it was new. He made fine changes and it was all about detail; he changed his shaft in the end because he likes a bit more weight on the back - but I'm talking such a fine detail. "But when you watch his game it's all about fine detail, it's about getting inside that wire. When he wires something he doesn't think 'I threw that well, it should have gone in' - it's 'why didn't that go in? I don't want to hit that wire again'. "That's his mindset and he'll make a change to better that." Plummer recalls texting The Power the morning after his defeat to Van Gerwen and reassuring him that he knew exactly what changes he needed to make, resulting in the addition of a "nano grip" towards the back of the dart. The changes appeared to do the trick. Taylor called him excitedly to report that he had hit ten 180's in half-an-hour on his practice board - and he hit two nine-darters at a Tour event in Wigan. In Premier League terms, he moved from a perilous position near the bottom of the table to an eventual third-placed finish - and will go into Thursday night's Play-Offs at the O2 Arena with a strong chance of recapturing the trophy. And if he picks up yet another major in London then you can guess who he'll be pointing at and thanking in his interview with Dave Clark afterwards!