Premier League Darts 2024
Week 8 Preview by Shane McArdle
The Premier League season continues this week, Thursday (March 14th), with the action coming from The 3Arena in Dublin, Ireland.
The tournament sees eight of the top darting stars contest across a 16-week mini-event format over the season, with each league night comprising of a quarter-final, semi-final, and final format, all of which will be played over the best of 11 legs (first to six).
Each week’s winner will receive a £10,000 bonus.
Ranking points will also be awarded each night, with five going to the winner, three to the runner-up, and two to the losing semi-finalists, to form the league table from which the top four players will progress to the Play-Offs at The O2 in London on Thursday, May 23.
The action will be broadcast live on Sky Sports from 7 pm on Thursday.
Quarter-Final Match Betting and Predictions:
Thursday, March 21st
(Prices correct as of 3pm on March 19th)
(7:15pm) 1/5 Luke Humphries v Peter Wright 33/10 (Prediction – Luke Humphries, It’s top versus bottom of the Premier League in this contest. Luke Humphries made it back-to-back nightly wins in Nottingham last week to put him on top of the table in the overall standings for the first time and despite Peter Wright winning his first match of the tournament when beating Gerwyn Price in a last-leg decider last week, it’s a comfortable win for the World No.1 for me in this one. Correct Score Prediction – 6-3
(8pm) 11/10 Nathan Aspinall v Rob Cross 7/10 (Prediction – Nathan Aspinall, It’s a repeat of last week’s quarter-final between these two, where Nathan Aspinall was a narrow 6-5 winner, before going on to beat man (boy) of the moment Luke Littler 6-3 in the semi-finals and eventually finishing runner-up after losing 6-3 to Luke Humphries in the final. Rob Cross has been playing to a very high standard of late, however there is no reason to suggest a reversal of last Thursday’s result, therefore it’s another narrow win for “The Asp” in this one for me. Correct Score Prediction – 6-4
(8:45pm) 7/10 Michael van Gerwen v Gerwyn Price 11/10 (Prediction – Gerwyn Price, MVG is suffering from a muscle injury, which is causing pain when lifting and stretching his arm. Despite this he produced a 110.94 average in his quarter-final defeat to Luke Littler in last week’s quarter-final, where Littler averaged a whopping 114 average in his 6-2 win. However uncharacteristic poor finishing cost Gerwyn Price victory over Peter Wright in his quarter-final in Nottingham, with price eventually losing in a last-leg decider despite averaging 102. With his poor doubling expected to be sorted coming into this match, I’m going for a win for Gerwyn Price in this game. Correct Score Prediction – 4-6
(9:30pm) 7/20 Luke Littler v Michael Smith 2/1 (Prediction – Luke Littler, Luke Littler produced the performance of the tournament so far, when averaging 114 in a 6-2 win over MVG, where he came close to producing yet another nine-dart finish. Missed doubles didn’t help when he lost out 6-3 to Nathan Aspinall in the semi-finals. Michael Smith lost his quarter-final match 6-4 in Nottingham to the eventual winner Luke Humphries and produced a nine-darter in a Players Championship game just a few days ago, however he still lost that match to Raymond van Barneveld and has been struggling for consistency in his game of late. It is mainly for this reason that I expect a win for Luke Littler in this contest. Correct Score Prediction – 6-3
Tournament Outright Betting:
Luke Humphries 2/1 – Luke Littler 11/4 – Michael van Gerwen 11/4 – Nathan Aspinall 11/1 – Rob Cross 11/1 – Michael Smith 12/1 – Gerwyn Price 14/1 Peter Wright 66/1