Jonny Clayton is the defending Premier League champion

Premier League Darts 2022: Was the selection fair, will the new format work and who will emerge triumphant?

By Paul Nicholson

Darts

Thu February 03, 2022 · 3y ago

The new-look Premier League Darts season kicks off in Cardiff on Thursday night and Paul Nicholson discusses all the burning issues such as the eight-player field, format and who will emerge triumphant.

The wait is over

There’s been a long wait to find out who the chosen eight players would be for this season’s Premier League but I think it’s fair to say most people correctly predicted seven of them: Peter Wright, Gerwyn Price, Michael van Gerwen, James Wade, Michael Smith, Gary Anderson and Jonny Clayton.

Once it was announced the line-up would be cut from the usual 10, those ranked in the top seven in the Order of Merit looked pretty much undroppable – just like they would have been in a normal year – and then it seemed to be a three-way battle between Jose de Sousa, Dimitri Van den Bergh and Rob Cross.

But after what happened at last year’s Masters when Jonny Clayton won it from well outside the world’s top 10 to sneak into the line-up before justifying the selection in emphatic fashion, we were all prepared for a potential twist in this year’s saga.

Three of the last four in the Masters weren’t in the running so as soon as Jonny Clayton lost, it was effectively down to Dave Chisnall, De Sousa and Joe Cullen even though it wasn’t publicised as an official shoot-out.

I do think these stories give the Masters more gravitas and credibility as a ‘major’ – although I don’t think the PDC will necessarily make it a confirmed feature of the tournament in case someone who they don’t really think is Premier League material wins it. No disrespect to Simon Whitlock but if he’d won it from outside the world’s top 24, it would have given the PDC a real headache.

Overall, I’m happy with the line-up because it does now include a debutant. If De Sousa had won it then he’d have kept his place and had Clayton retained the title then they’d probably have given the final spot to European champion Rob Cross, who some feel was unfortunate to miss out.

Should Voltage be cross?

Rob is now the second reigning major champion to miss out on a Premier League season in the tournament’s history behind yours truly.

So I finally have some company on the exclusive couch having missed out back in 2010 after winning the Players Championship Finals. James Wade was on it briefly last year when he won the UK Open before the Premier League began but when Gerwyn Price was forced to withdraw due to Covid, he got a late call-up.

However, in my case the selection had already been made by the time I won my major, which was staged at the end of January that year, so I wasn’t aggrieved.

Rob will feel disappointed because he’d already got a ranked major under his belt but this snub will give him even more motivation to have a great 2022 – and based on how well he’s performed in the last six months, that’s extremely possible.

Rockstar to darts star

Although this was Joe Cullen’s first ever major final, he has been winning ranking titles over the past few seasons and this could give his career the lift we’ve been waiting for.

In the past he’s admitted to struggling with practice and finds it hard to motivate himself to play away from competitions, while we know he loves spending time playing other sports like snooker and golf.

But now he’s in the Premier League, the one thing you can’t be is lazy! Every Wednesday from now he’ll wake up knowing he potentially has three games to prepare for the following day – against the best players in the world.

Those Thursday nights will subsequently act as further fine tuning for the ranking floor events at weekends, which are usually based pretty close to where he lives in Bradford in either Barnsley or Wigan. Logistically this could be a dream season for Joe and I really think he can handle his new busy calendar to maximum effect.

New format

Before I address whether the new weekly tournament format is a good idea from an entertainment and spectator point of view, I must say it could give players a real advantage over those not included when it comes to other tournaments.

I always remember Kim Huybrechts telling me about the days of midweek Championship League events around 10 years ago and how the added match practice really enhanced those players’ form for weekend ranked tournaments.

In previous seasons a Premier League player who doesn’t get relegated at Judgement Night will have one fixture a night for 16 weeks and then potentially the Play-Offs.

This year, they’ll each have a bare minimum of 16 matches but a maximum of 48 should they reach every weekly final. Obviously that scenario is highly unlikely but you’d expect them to be playing between 25 and 35 televised games.

There is a fine balancing act, however, because if anyone does too well, they might start to get a little bit tired towards the end of the Premier League season so it will be interesting to see how many of the big guns skip some weekend Pro Tour events – and even on the European Tour - to stay fresh.

As far as the fans are concerned, my main worry is that it could get a bit repetitive and stale after a month of seeing these same fixtures so many times.

It might get to a point when we see one particular match-up seven or eight times – even more perhaps. That’s the big risk from a TV point of view.

However, for the spectators in the crowd, they are going to get a great night that will always culminate in a champion.

Nobody should be too negative yet, let’s just sit back and enjoy this new format and assess if it’s working after a couple of months.

Who wants it most?

There are two players who want to win the Premier League more than anyone this season – Peter Wright and Gerwyn Price.

They are both trying to tick off all the events they’ve never won and this trophy is a significant absence from their CVs.

Michael van Gerwen obviously has his own motivations to prove he can get back to the top of the sport while Michael Smith will also be hungry as ever to win his first major tournament.

Michael van Gerwen’s major drought continued at the weekend and both of his matches looked a real struggle and effort for him.

He was let off the hook against Luke Humphries but couldn’t get going against Joe Cullen either so he has plenty of doubters to silence heading into the season.

He’s crunching his hand when holding the dart more than ever before, plus I don’t think his balance is as good as it used to be. He doesn’t win prolifically anymore and when he does win, he seems to struggle over the line. He’s not playing ‘that’ badly but everyone else has caught him up and they’re making it more difficult for him.

As for Michael Smith, I’m so pleased to see him back in the line-up after his tremendous run to the World Championship final.

There’s no doubt that he deserves to be here and he’ll relish this new format of getting multiple games under his belt and at this early stage I think he’s the player I most want to see win the title.

I’m sure there will be banter backstage from Joe towards Michael because he’s now got a major title after just one final so Bully Boy will love to put him in his place by the end of the season!

Play-off and title predictions

It’s obviously very hard to predict how such a new format will pan out, but the players I expect to be competing for the weekly titles more consistently and therefore earn enough points to qualify for the play-offs are Gerwyn Price, Michael Smith, Jonny Clayton and Michael van Gerwen.

This obviously means Peter Wright missing out but I think the doubts around those darts he’s been tinkering with may continue to linger.

Alan Warriner-Little summed it up perfectly on Saturday when he said on commentary: “If you’d just won the world snooker championship you wouldn’t buy a new cue.”

Not only did he change his World Championship-winning darts but he changed every single aspect of them; The point, the barrel, the stem and the flight. Everything!

When you keep changing, consistency is going to be affected and I can’t believe we’re still having this conversation about Peter Wright. He’s incredible with the diamond grip golden darts but then wants to change them.

As for going all out and predicting the overall winner, I’ll stick my neck on the line and say Michael Smith.