Luke Humphries salutes Phil Taylor's role in Premier League win as Luke Littler has eyes on his own records
Cool Hand defeated The Nuke at London's O2 to complete the Triple Crown as he joins trio in prestigious club.
Proud Luke Humphries joined Phil Taylor in the Triple Crown club and immediately thanked The Power for surging him to success.
Cool Hand breezed to the Premier League title after a stunning fightback blew away Luke Littler.
The World No.1 cast aside issues with wind across the stage to storm back and dump The Nuke in front of 14,000 at London's O2.
Humphries pocketed the £275,000 winners cheque by beating Nathan Aspinall 10-7 and then silencing the Littler Army in London to win 11-8 and claim the cherished trio of elite prizes.
He followed Taylor, Michael van Gerwen and Gary Anderson in winning the World Championship, World Matchplay and Premier League in his career with the success over his big rival.
Afterwards, the champ confessed Taylor has been helping him and explained: 'Honestly, that means the world to me. That was the one I was missing. That was the one I wanted. I've done it now.
'If I don't win another title ever, I'm happy because I've done the three hardest ones to do. I've joined the elusive group of me, Gary, Phil, Michael.
'I must say to Phil, thank you so much because he's been giving me loads of support the last few weeks, really helped me out a lot.
"Gave me a lot of advice and he gave me that extra boost. That was a struggle between me and Luke. It wasn't our best game, but I'm really, really pleased with it.
'I love him to bits. Honestly, he's one of my best mates on tour. He's so good. He wasn't his best, nor was I, but I managed to get in front of him. Well, I'm just going to go and retire now and that's it, I'm done! No, I want to search for more. He makes me want to be a better player.
'But right now, I'm doing okay. I've won eight major titles now, the most important ones that I can dream of, so now it's important that I go and finish this end of the season well and try and regain that World Championships.
"I said to him: You'll probably get me back a few times, but I'm glad I've got it. One time or 10 times, one's good enough for me.'
Littler dodged an object flung onto the stage and was hit by a foam finger prior to his 10-7 semi win over Gerwyn Price, but he couldn't get away from Humphries and lost out in his bid to go back-to-back.
He said: 'I had a little bit of a thing after the game, as I do. No one likes losing, but I'm fine. Glad to say it's over. It's been a tough 17 weeks, but I'm very happy it's over. Came runner-up, I'll be back next year.
'I've set many records. Personally, I don't think they'll be broken because I'm going to go next year and try and break my own records. But a little bit of a break now.'
The pair will team-up at the World Cup next month and Humphries said: 'I've won it before, Luke's going to want to win the World Cup and we're both really good friends, but we're good players, so if we connect, then we're going to stand a great chance of winning.
"I know the pressure's going to be on us, but we believe that we can win it and if we do play our best, I don't think anybody's going to touch us, but we'll see.'
Littler added: 'I can't wait, obviously. He won it last year, so now he can lead me to victory.'
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