Premier League Week 1 – Belfast

The 2013 Premier League of darts kicks off in Belfast tomorrow tonight and Simon Whitlock must be everybody’s banker bet. Despite being up against a double world champion in Adrian Lewis, Lewis’s current form is a major cause for concern. Not in the last year has he put together a string of even half decent performances and his showing in last week’s World Cup was nothing short of embarrassing.

Whitlock on the other hand has enjoyed a fruitful couple of months and I am confident he will put ‘Jackpot’ to the sword.

There is no doubt that the ten players on show are all pure quality but there is one match that stands out on day one as the main highlight and that is 16 times world champion Phil Taylor against the most improved player on the planet MVG, Michael van Gerwen. For me though this one is too close to call as I’m sure van Gerwen will be a force in his first Premier League and Taylor showed no signs of letting his darting grip on the world slacken in last week’s World Cup.

Hamilton v Thornton and Barney v Anderson are two more high quality encounters that look tough to call so my only other suggested wager is another Premier League debutant, Wes Newton, to beat James Wade. Wade is another player that has in general found it hard to put together a run of results in the last few months. Newton though has steadily climbed the dart rankings and finds himself sitting comfortably at number 6. A second major final at the end of 2012 again showed the ability the ‘Warrior’ has and if Wade is on another off day I fully expect him to capitalise.

Simon Whitlock 10pts win @ 11/8
Wes Newton 6pts win @ 13/8