{"id":2539,"date":"2026-02-19T05:16:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T05:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/2539\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T05:16:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T05:16:17","slug":"josh-rock-blames-antwerp-struggles-on-pre-match-toilet-visit-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/2539\/","title":{"rendered":"Josh Rock blames Antwerp struggles on pre-match toilet visit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Josh Rock is ready to wash his hands of Belgian soap after blaming last week\u2019s Premier League hammering in Antwerp on a pre-match visit to the toilet.<\/p>\n

The Northern Irishman lost 6-2 to Michael van Gerwen in the quarter-final of night two of the weekly roadshow and revealed he could not grip the darts properly.<\/p>\n

He said the soap in the backstage toilets affected him and will now carry chalk and wax in his case to prevent future episodes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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\u2019m up there, and I was like, \u2018This isn\u2019t going to go well\u2019,\u201d Rock explained.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

\u201cI just could not feel it at all. So now we\u2019ve got a plan B, I\u2019ve got a bit of chalk and wax in the case from now on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t have to use it this week at the Players Championship, it was fine, but it must have been the soap I used.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the first time it\u2019s happened. That was definitely the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt must be just whatever soap was in the toilet at Antwerp that I used and it just obviously took all the oils out of my finger and lost all grip.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rock has at least been able to cleanse his mind of the episode as he goes for his first points of the Premier League season in Glasgow on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually laughed at it straight away, because I knew what the problem was,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I played like that and didn\u2019t know what the problem was then, obviously we have an issue.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I knew I couldn\u2019t grip my hands and no matter how much I was trying to lick my fingers, rub my finger up and down a barrel to get my fingers rough, it wasn\u2019t working, so I just let that one go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rock, in his debut campaign, opens up against Luke Humphries and as a staunch Rangers fan and with Celtic in Europa League action, he hopes to have the crowd on his side.<\/p>\n

\u201cLuckily, Celtic are playing in the Europa League tomorrow, so hopefully they\u2019re all out and there\u2019s only Rangers fans in,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m close to Scotland, I\u2019m literally a two-hour boat or a quick 10-minute flight over the water. So I would love it to happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s on the day. If I turn up, I win. If I don\u2019t turn up, I don\u2019t win.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the other quarter-finals, Luke Littler takes on Van Gerwen, Jonny Clayton is up against Gian van Veen and Gerwyn Price plays Stephen Bunting.<\/p>\n

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ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Josh Rock is ready to wash his hands of Belgian soap after blaming last week\u2019s Premier League hammering…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[19,1517,2212,1534,1358,1265],"class_list":{"0":"post-2539","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-antwerp","8":"tag-antwerp","9":"tag-darts","10":"tag-glasgow","11":"tag-josh-rock","12":"tag-michael-van-gerwen","13":"tag-premier-league"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}