It is particularly rare, though, for someone to excel in team and individual sports, and I wonder how the camaraderie of rugby differs from a sport where the stage can be a lonely place. “I always wanted to play rugby, never thought of anything else,” he says. “The majority of the time, when I was playing semi-pro, I was a hooker. I loved the physicality. I used to love getting the ball in my hands. I used to love tackling. When I finished rugby [aged 29] and just played darts, I missed the after-match stuff, the bus journeys, having a beer, the sing-songs. When you’re playing rugby, there’s 14 other players to help you out. If you’re on an off-day, the rest of the team can pick you up.”
The decision to join some mates during the four-day Q School for a PDC Tour Card proved to be one of the sport’s great sliding-doors moments. “If I had known the cost, £100 to enter tournaments, hotels, travel, I might not have gone,” he says. “I went with no expectations. I went to support some of the other boys…I was the only one to get through so it was a bit weird. There was no pressure.
“I had just played Friday night pub league… and a bit of Super League. Never played any county because you had to play on a Saturday in the B team to be able to play in the A team and I was playing rugby.
“I was pretty decent with maths. I knew all my routes because I’d played two years in the pub leagues. But first time going in, and seeing the likes of Phil Taylor, [Gary] Anderson and Barney [Raymond van Barneveld] was a bit surreal.”
The 2015 World Matchplay, when he beat Adrian Lewis to reach the quarter-final, was Price’s big breakthrough and he has barely shifted from the world’s elite since. He thinks he will keep going for another decade or so, but stresses that his competitive instincts are not linked to money.
“I’ve invested well,” he says. “[The chip shop] is going all right – any business is tough to run, especially the way the Government try and take money off you. I could finish today but I enjoy playing darts. I love being able to travel the world and represent the PDC. The atmosphere everywhere is buzzing. I get paid for doing something I love … and I want to win whether we’re playing for 100 grand or 50p.”
