Tuesday 6 May 2014 18:22, UK
Two Dutch darting heavyweights go head-to-head in Newcastle, while Phil Taylor, Peter Wright and Gary Anderson scrap for a top-four spot. Rod Harrington previews the action for us...
These are the top two players in the Premier League and in theory one of them could still fail to reach the top four, but they have such a big legs difference that they should both be safe. A draw in this match would take both players through, but I don’t think Michael van Gerwen would settle for that. He wants to be the kingpin, the number one Dutchman and the number one player in the world. He is young, brash, he wants to win everything and he won’t give any quarter in this game.
Barney needs to start stamping his authority and getting his mojo back in darts. He played Phil Taylor last week and The Power missed a chance to go 4-1 up – and if that had happened we may have seen Barney capitulate – but he got a bit of luck and you can’t win in this game without a bit of that. When he’s been given a chance he has taken it – such as the 118 he took out last week. The form says that Barney will win this because Van Gerwen has been going to sleep in matches, but there are some cases where you chuck the form book out of the window – and this is one of those. With Van Gerwen’s ability he can rock up and thrash anybody – and I am going to go for him to win here. I don’t think they will play out the draw.
Gary Anderson has been playing some absolutely brilliant darts. He was exceptional in his victory over Van Gerwen in Birmingham last Thursday and played well in the Tour event at the weekend when he reached the semi-finals in Wigan. One thing we’ve always said about him is that if he turns up and starts hitting doubles then everybody needs to look out – and he proved that last week when he gave Van Gerwen a bit of a mauling.
Dave Chisnall can no longer qualify for the top four and has not got the consistency for the Premier League at the moment. He has the game in his locker, but we don’t see it enough – throwing three or four great legs doesn’t win you anything and that’s the problem with him right now. He’s making it easy for his opponents and he got well beaten by in-form Robert Thornton last week. He only has pride to play for and I think Anderson needs a result too much to give it up.
I think we can call this a knock-out game, especially for Peter Wright. If Anderson wins the first match of the night then Wright needs a minimum of a point out of Taylor. If he ends up two points adrift of Anderson and three adrift of Taylor with just one game to go (and that’s against Van Gerwen) then it is going to be difficult. However, one thing he has done over the last two years is learn how to grind results out when he needs them; he did it against Adrian Lewis last week and punished his opponent at the end of the game.
So if Taylor is a bit nervy – as he was against Van Barneveld last week – then Wright could get a result out of this game. But with the way Phil is playing I am going to back him to win – and that will make it really difficult for Wright to qualify.
Adrian Lewis has lost his edge and that has shown over the last two or three weeks. He was lucky to draw with Wright and was well beaten by Van Barneveld the week before. For me, he is throwing too quickly. People say he needs to do that, but if you look at the percentage of last darts that he wastes, it is too high to win matches. I’d like to see him take an extra split-second of composure on his third dart because he probably wastes four darts in every 10 – and that’s too many for a professional player. If he tidies that up he will be back at the top.
Neither of these players can qualify for the O2 Arena, but Thornton is the form horse. He has won three out of the last four Tour events, has hit fifteen 180’s in his last two matches and has the better form of the two players. I think he will win, but it’s always hard to bet against someone like Lewis – and as I said on my William Hill blog, it’s worth putting a bit of money on four draws on Thursday night because I could get my calls all wrong!
