The Nine Darter, Week 1: Mighty Mike And The Funky Bunch

Welcome to The Nine Darter, Uproxx Sports’ weekly recap of what happened during this week’s episode of BBC America’s Thursday Night Darts, which chronicles each week of the 2018 Unibet Premier League Darts. This week, we head to 3Arena in Dublin for the first week of action.

The first leg of the Premier League season took us to Dublin where 9,000-plus packed in to watch 10 of the finest darts players in the world go head-to-head and, understandably, nerves appeared to creep up on some of the players in that atmosphere. There were some highlights, some lowlights and plenty to talk about, so let’s get into it.

1. The Results And Table

Each week we’ll start here with the quick and dirty match results and a look at the Premier League table, and then we’ll dive a little deeper into these matches further down.

Simon Whitlock 7 — 5 Mensur Suljovic
Michael Smith 7 — 5 Gary Anderson
Daryl Gurney 6 — 6 Raymond Van Barneveld
Michael van Gerwen 7 — 2 Rob Cross
Peter Wright 6 — 6 Gerwyn Price

1. Michael Van Gerwen: 1-0-0, +5, 2 points
T2. Simon Whitlock: 1-0-0, +2, 2 points
T2. Michael Smith: 1-0-0, +2, 2 points
T4. Daryl Gurney: 0-0-1, 0, 1 point
T4. Raymond Van Barneveld: 0-0-1, 0, 1 point
T4. Peter Wright: 0-0-1, 0, 1 point
T4. Gerwyn Price: 0-0-1, 0, 1 point
T8. Gary Anderson: 0-1-0, -2, 0 points
T8. Mensur Suljovic: 0-1-0, -2, 0 points
10. Rob Cross: 0-1-0, -5, 0 points

2. MVG remains the MVP

World No. 1 Michael Van Gerwen got his revenge on reigning world champ Rob Cross, who knocked MVG out in the semis of the World Championships, in the most dominant performance of the night. You could tell early that Van Gerwen was on his game and he never let off the gas pedal, pummeling trebles and firing in three 114 checkouts on the night.

MVG was surgical with the darts and anytime Cross left a door open, MVG was sure to slam it shut with no doubt — something he failed to do at the Alexandra Palace during the World Championships.

MVG said after the match he “knows” he’ll be at the O2 in London for the Premier League Finals, and with the form he showed and the leg differential lead he picked up in the opening match, it’s hard to doubt him.

3. Veterans to be reckoned with

Our first match of the week, and our first match of the Premier League this year, pitted a pair of veterans against one another. Australia’s Simon Whitlock faced off against Austria’s Mensur Suljovic, and while Cross-MVG was supposed to be the headliner this is the match that stole the show.

The two highest averages of the night belonged to these two — Whitlock threw down a 106.49, while Suljovic fired back with a 103.71. The crazy thing about this is Whitlock (200/1) had the worst betting odds to win the Premier League, while Suljovic’s odds (50/1) weren’t exactly great, either.

So yeah, this was a pleasant surprise, especially when the two were throwing down crazy stuff like this in back-to-back legs to send the Dublin crowd into a frenzy.

4. The Price Is Wright

Gerwyn Price looked like he was destined for a similar fate as Rob Cross in the final match of the night, falling behind 5-1 in legs to Peter Wright, but a 116 checkout in the seventh leg seemed to be the turning point for the former rugby player.

Price battled back to go on a 5-1 run of his own to earn a hard fought point and the draw against Wright, whose doubling down the stretch was rather dismal. Wright narrowly missed a bullseye on the wire for the match win and then his failure to find D8 left the door open for Price, who cashed in on D10.

As the season wears on, Wright will assuredly look back at this match as one that should’ve yielded two points for him and a pretty strong leg differential. For Price, in his Premier League debut, this should give him a lot of confidence moving forward.

5. Anderson’s Back

Early on, if you heard “Anderson’s back,” the context would’ve been about how the two-time world champion looked to be in great form and back on his game. In the second half of the match, that same phrase would’ve been questioning whether Anderson would even make it all the way through the season with his back issues he’s battled since the World Championships. Anderson jumped out to a 5-1 lead despite some mediocre scoring because it seemed he couldn’t miss when it counted and then everything fell apart.

Michael Smith deserves credit for turning things around and capitalizing on opportunities but Anderson’s meltdown was best characterized by the leg in which he busted twice on D1 and then threw three darts high, allowing Smith, who wasn’t playing well that leg either, to eventually steal it. Anderson’s health moving forward will be something to watch. We don’t know if it was his back or simply poor play that led to him losing six consecutive legs, but in either case things don’t look good for the Flying Scotsman at the moment after he was 5-of-26 on darts at double.

6. Sweet Chin Music

Aside from Gary Anderson, Daryl “Superchin” Gurney may have had the wildest ups and downs of the evening in Dublin as he jumped out to a 2-0 lead, fell behind 3-0, jumped back up 5-2 and eventually finished with a 6-6 draw to the 5-time world champ Raymond Van Barneveld. Gurney at one point was staring a 9-darter in the face after six perfect darts and then limped to the finish line to narrowly win that leg.

However, while that match featured moments of brilliance and shaky darts from both, arguably the best part of the match was Barney being unable to fight the urge to sing along to “Sweet Caroline,” Gurney’s walk-on music.

7. Double Trouble

Considering these were 10 of the best players in the world on display, the doubling on Thursday was less than stellar from the majority of the players. Setting aside Van Gerwen, Whitlock and Suljovic, the rest of the players all left tons of missed opportunities out there. Gurney could’ve earned two points instead of one had he been able to find a double sitting on 28 in the fifth leg of his match with Barney.

Anderson’s problems with doubles down the stretch were almost comical, highlighted by the leg in which he got stuck in the Madhouse on D1. In total, the doubling on the night was poor all around. Here are the checkout percentages for every player and you can see the drop-off from the top three to the rest.

1. Simon Whitlock: 7/8 (87.5%)
2. Michael Van Gerwen: 7/12 (58.3%)
3. Mensur Suljovic: 5/9 (55.6%)
4. Gerwyn Price: 6/17 (35.3%)
5. Rob Cross: 2/6 (33.3%)
6. Michael Smith: 7/22 (31.8%)
7. Raymond Van Barneveld: 6/20 (30%)
8. Peter Wright: 6/21 (28.6%)
9. Daryl Gurney: 6/22 (27.3%)
10. Gary Anderson: 5/26 (19.2%)

8. We need the walk-ons

I know BBC America is under a time crunch trying to get five matches shown in the 90-minute window (plus commercials), but the atmosphere in the arenas of the Premier League is part of what makes darts so fun and the walk-ons/intros are part of what create that. While “Seven Nation Army” is a bit played out at sporting events, it’s impossible not to be hyped when MVG gets his intro.

That said, we also need to get Rob Cross a new walk-on song, because this just ain’t it with how dramatic the lead in bells are during the intro.

9. What to watch next week

Next week’s schedule doesn’t feature a headlining match that will create as much anticipation and buzz as MVG-Cross had, but there are still some very interesting matches to watch. Whitlock-Cross could be a great match as Cross will look to bounce back and Whitlock is coming off of arguably the best performance of Week 1, considering his doubling and average. Barney-Suljovic could be sneaky fun and MVG-Wright will undoubtedly get top billing.

Full schedule of action for Week 2:
Michael Smith v. Daryl Gurney
Rob Cross v. Simon Whitlock
Michael van Gerwen v. Peter Wright
Gerwyn Price v. Gary Anderson
Raymond van Barneveld v. Mensur Suljovic