Premier League 13 - Ninth League Day, Brighton
We discuss relegation, the race to the O2 and some we have some tips!
Thursday has been billed as Judgement Night! Although in all likelihood there is not going to be a huge amount of "judgement" required to sort out the relegation spots! Dave has been caught up in the hype announcing at the end of the darts last week there was nothing resting on the Taylor V Thornton game as he looked ahead to this Thursday's games. Err, there is the small matter of qualifying for the O2 and the finals so in fact there is quite a lot resting on the Taylor/Thornton game albeit that the O2 hunters still have a few weeks more to shape their destiny!Of course it is easy to get caught up in the excitement of the first relegation battle the darts Premier League has ever had. There are four players facing the axe, Anderson, Newton, Whitlock and Lewis. Jackpot though can only go down if Anderson and Newton both win, comfortably and Lewis loses heavily to Barney. In this year's crazy Premier League then it would of course be fitting for this unlikely outcome to come true but realistically The Wizard holds the key to who will go down. If he wins then the trap door opens for Anderson and Newton but if he can't overcome Mighty Mike then Newton or Anderson have a chance of pulling off a most unlikely reprieve.
The Wizard and The Warrior have had contrasting preparation for Judgement Night. Whitlock chose to withdraw from the weekend's European Darts Trophy so he could focus on his Premier League survival. Wes on the other hand chose to play and actually beat the latest "beard to be feared", Paul Nicholson in the final!
Wes is on a roll, he beat Anderson last week, one of three outsiders defying the odds to win (Thornton and Wade were also winners and second favourites). Taylor out played and out witted Barney and fully justified his odds on status and proved that history does often repeat itself, way too many times if you are a Barney fan! . The Power baffled Barney by reverting back to his old darts just as it looked like he was getting the hang of his new ones. The week before he hit a 101 average and 64% on the checkouts! Along with Anderson's double hitting, the "new darts" saga is yet another great darting mystery!
The fixtures have been "doctored" to give us the best possible chance of drama and entertainment. The last match of the night will become a "dead rubber" as far as the relegation battle is concerned if Newton and Anderson both lose. Both MVG and Whitlock will still of course be focused on winning to help them on their way to the O2.
Tips wise we had a good week last week, Barney at least won the battle of the 180's and The Thorn trounced the 118.5 checkout line with a fantastic performance including a 157 checkout which landed our bet with acres to spare!
We will look to The Thorn again this week to bring us some more joy! Thornton is 8/13 to score more 180's than Taylor.
Last week we admitted we have been swerving backing match winners such have been the results the best 10 players in the PDC have managed to pull off to date. James Wade at 10/11 looks tempting though. For once we have a little inside knowledge; Wade dropped out of Germany as he has had the dreaded cold/flu lurgi that has been going around. So this may be a factor in his price.
On the other side of the coin can Gary Anderson hit 7 doubles to win, or even 6 for a draw? He looked exasperated last week hitting 5 from 29 attempts. Will he even get that many chances against The Machine? If James can keep his flu symptoms at bay for the length of a darts match I doubt it!