The time is almost here when Phil Taylor and Adrian Lewis finally return to the oche, this time as a pair on the MODUS Super Series at the International Pairs at the end of November. For the time being, both players are putting in the hours on the oche while a different event took priority.

Beat Luke Littler was streamed on Netflix and brought in a huge audience as 20 hopeful challengers attempted to down Littler for a huge sum of cash. Fallon Sherrock took her chance and downed Littler in fantastic fashion. Taylor and Lewis showed immense happiness and proudness towards her when speaking to talkSPORT, while the 16-time world champion clapped back at the criticism she had been receiving.

Reacting to Lewis' new hairdo

Before they got into the darts, Lewis was forced to explain his thought process about getting a new hairstyle. The mullet was the chosen hairdo, with Taylor clearly not impressed. "Look at the state of this," he commented while turning the two-time world champion's head towards the camera.

After practically having the same haircut his entire career, it was a huge change that Lewis was against at first. "Basically, what happened was I’d had the same haircut for pretty much all my life, except for the last six months. My wife said, 'Ade, I think you should change something. What about having this mullet?' I said, 'I am not. I’m not having anything like that.' She said, 'Come on, just try it. You might like it.' I thought, 'All right.' I said, 'I’ll do this once.' And then I never looked back, really. Now I look flash and all that."

Before Taylor had a chance to review it even more, Lewis clapped back. "Hold on. He’s got no hair! He can’t touch skin. We need a duplicate with hair," he joked.

However, 'The Power' had the last laugh. "We all put £1,000 in each for the worst haircut, and obviously Ade’s won the money now."

Nerves kicking in for 'The Power'

Tayor stunned the darting world as he announced a comeback to the sport following retiring back in 2024 amid an unsuccessful period on the World Seniors. After getting back on the practice board, he has decided to make the highly anticipated comeback alongside Lewis as they team for England as part of the International Pairs tournament for MODUS from November 23-28.

That date is creeping closer and closer, and the nerves are clearly kicking in. "Nervous. Very nervous," Taylor stated. " I get nervous for anything now. Same as you, Ade. I get nervous now. It’s difficult.

"I’m going to play with Ade, and I love him, so it’s going to be a great day for me, do you know what I mean? It’ll be my last one ever. For my memory, I’ve played with one of my best friends, who I love to bits anyway, so that’ll be my final one. It’ll be brilliant. And Ade can have that memory as well, that he obviously finished me off!"

Lewis had some reassuring words for his future partner. "I said to him, 'Don’t put yourself under too much pressure, because it’s pointless for you. You might as well just go there and enjoy it. If we click, we’ll have a great chance.'"

Taylor confirmed that he will be throwing with Gen 6 darts. "I quite like it. The grip’s nice on it, so yeah, I’ll be using them."

Nine-darter potential as 16-year-old talent gets lavishly praised

The duo have hit plenty of nine-darters in their pomp. taylor hit two in one match before while Lewis struck perfection in a World Championship final. Even recently, the 41-year-old has been pinning perfection. "Maybe my stars are aligned," he said.

There has never been a televised nine-darter in a pairs event. However, it is most certainly possible, as Taylor confirmed. "Very difficult, though. I have done a nine-darter in pairs, believe it or not, with Dennis Priestley. It was only in an exhibition match.

"The one I was disappointed I never got was the one in the Grand Prix, the double-in, double-out. I had a shot at the bull a few times, but I missed it. I really, really wanted to do one there. That’d be the first one."

Away from pairs but sticking on the MODUS Super Series, 16-year-old Archie Self became the youngest player to produce a nine-dart leg on television, bettering the likes of Luke Littler who also rose up these ranks in a similar vain.

He got honourable praise from Taylor. "It's absolutely brilliant. I haven’t actually seen it yet. I’m going to go on YouTube and watch it now. Somebody told me about it when I came in, so I’ll go and watch it now. He must have played well, the young lad. Fair play to him. That’s set the standard now. He’s got to get on the practice board and practise even harder."

Lewis continued this praise. "I think you’ve just got to stay dedicated. Make sure he enjoys it as well. Like you say, when you’re on that tour and everything else, it does become a grind. It’s like a rollercoaster, you know what I mean? You have your ups and downs, and it’s just about stabilising your game."

High acclaim directed to Sherrock

Beat Luke Littler was on the tip of every darts fan tongue in recent weeks, and it was finally played out in Manchester last Friday. Many tried, and many failed before Sherrock took to the stage and took out 501 in 15 darts to see off the reigning two-time world champion and number one to win a whopping £501,000 in the process.

While the critics remained at large, the public perception of the event seemed overall very positive as darts took another huge step up towards the mainstream thanks to 'The Nuke'. Taylor debunked this criticism over Sherrock, backing the 32-year-old while being immensely proud of her.

“I enjoyed it. Some of the players were very nervous in the earlier rounds," he recalled. “Fallon was brilliant and it's changed the young girl's life, which I'm really, really pleased about. All this doom and gloom every time you pick the newspapers up. Now, this young girl has a young son, she can buy herself a house, rent-free for the rest of her life, no mortgages, which is brilliant. I love winners anyway.”

He was surprised by the outcome. “I'm being honest with you now, if anything, Luke should have gotten better. I would have got better on the fifth [match]. If you're going to beat me or Ady [Adrian Lewis], you're going to have to do early doors because we get stronger. So Fallon's done really, really well there."

There were a lot of hopeful darters wanting to get into the event. “I was at the pre-show, one of the judges with Barry and Lorna, and we could see out the window, it was raining, and the queues were massive, seriously, like a football match. They stood there in the rain all day, and so did Fallon. She had to earn a place as well, and she did it. She came in and she hit the double. She says, ‘I was so lucky to qualify’. And she's come through and won. I'm dead proud.”

Lewis, who was watching the event from the comfort of his own home, thoroughly enjoyed the unique event. “I loved every aspect of it. From the stage, how it looked, the walk-ons. I love that trash man," he said.

“I thought he was fantastic when he came out in a wheelie bin. But the stage set-up and everything else, if the PDC can do that, where you can walk directly straight up the middle of the stage and walk on like that instead of coming up those side steps, like scaffolding steps, it would be a lot better. I thought it was fantastic and, if anything, I think that's the way it should go, I think, eventually."

He was also quick to laud 'The Queen of the Palace.' "I think she's done brilliantly, like you say. I don't know if Luke was starting to get a bit bored or what, I'm not sure what was going on.

"The first few, you could tell they were really nervous. The contestants were very nervous, and I expect every time somebody comes up at part one, I thought, I never heard of them, but I thought they're going to be half decent because of that part one. They just didn't show up, did they, unfortunately. But I think if he'd had a really tough start, he might have settled in a bit quicker and put him on the back foot.”