What's the story with Parrott? I remember him helping Ronnie with his tip and talking about it on BBC with Hazel so there was no animosity between them as far as I can tell.
Basically in his book Dotty talks about the 2004 World Final and how after being 5-0 up he didn't do a right lot wrong and was awestruck at how good O'Sullivan was. He said everytime he thought he'd got him, Ronnie came back with an even better safety putting him right under the cosh.
Then in 2006 he said he was something like 5-3 behind at the interval (unsure of the score but he was behind... sod it I'll get the book to carry on) and talked to Del Hill and could see the same thing happening as in 2004 and being blown away. But Del Hill was with Ronnie in 2004 and told Dott that he knew how to beat him and it was to play 3 or 4 safety shots in a row against him. rather than the 1 or 2 needed against Robbo. "If you win the safety game, you win the match". Sure enough, after that extra safety from Dott, Ronnie started getting frustrated and played some rash shots to let Dotty in and he took full advantage.
He said he knew he'd got him when Ronnie pulled his tip off. He took the lead at 7-6 and Ronnie pulled his tip off and walked out of the arena. He didn't know what had happened at first but was told to go to his dressing room and Ronnie would have 15 minutes to get a new tip put on. Dott was getting really frustrated in the dressing room, didn't know what was going on and was getting angry telling the officials he wanted to get back out there and carry on.
Then when they came back out Ronnie didn't say a word to him or apologise and it got his back up and made him fired up. Although with the new tip "Ronnie being Ronnie made a century in the very next frame"!
Then he got it back to 8-8 at the interval and felt in control. He said he felt like Rocky from the film. He gave the champ a bloody nose and the safety exchanges were like soaking up punches before launching a brutal attack. He was growing in confidence, and was completely unaware of the focus on Ronnie and his tip from the tv people. In the last session he couldn't believe he won 8 frames in a row, said Ronnie was just missing the long pots and could see it was frustrating the life out of him.
He said he had to stick the game plan and keep it tight and keep Ronnie frustrated which meant turning down some long pots himself that he wanted to go for. He said he wanted to play more free flowing but had to stick to the gameplan because of how dangerous Ronnie is.
As I said before he was oblivious to what was going on with Ronnie and his tip because as far as he was concerned there must be people appreciating his tactical play and demonstrating how to beat a genius. And at 12-8 he felt if he could get to 13-8 then he would win all 8 frames so that next frame was big for him. Then in his words
"I began to consider the possibility that, if I could win eight successive frames against him, there was no reason why he couldn't win nine on the bounce against me. Aaarrgh!"
He hated the atmosphere in that last session. He didn't know what Ronnie was going to do, throw caution to the wind or outplay him at safety. Everyone at the Crucible was behind Ronnie. Everyone was expecting Dott to win so every time he missed a pot there were loads of ooh's and aah's which were light hearted but affected his concentration.
In the press conference after Ronnie was full of praise for Dott.
If you want to know more detail then get the book because I aint typing no more
But basically Dott goes into the BBC pundits and how he was aware of their read on his matches which conflicted with his and in one bit he singles out Clive Everton for a comment he saw in a documentary where Clive said if Ronnie had his head screwed on he would've beaten Dott. That hurt him because he respected Clive's opinion more than the others.