2023 Night 17 Premier League Darts Play-offs

Now, it is time for James Punt’s 2023 Night 17 Premier League Darts preview.

2023 Night 17 Premier League – The Play-Offs

The last night of the League stage was a disaster. A complete whitewash was compounded by MVG’s bizarre injury and subsequent withdrawal. That allowed Van den Bergh in to the final and to leapfrog Chris Dobey and end that ante post bet.

That meant we finished the 16 week marathon with a -1.55 point loss. Two of our three ante post bets lost another 3 points and all we have left is a 3 point bet on MVG to win tonight’s final, and that looks like it is heading down the pan.

Van Gerwen said after pulling out last week that we would take a few days off to rest and have his injury looked at. What he actually did was not to play an exhibition on Friday, but he then decided to play in the two Players Championship events on Saturday and Sunday. So his injury is either just superficial, or he did the wrong thing.

Gerwyn Price vs. Jonny Clayton

Price is the 1.36 favourite to beat his pal Clayton, who is the 3.60 outsider. He is an outsider who is in very decent form. He won the Austrian Darts Open last month and last Sunday he won PC12. Not a bad prep for the big night. He hit three big ton plus averages, but also two 92s and a 93. Not a completely consistent performance and it is very likely that he will need a ton plus minimum here.

Gerwyn Price reached the quarter final of PC11 on Saturday and reached the last 16 on Sunday. He hit four ton plus averages and from his nine matches played, only one saw an average of less than 95. He remains a very consistent player.

H2H

Of more importance is their H2H record. It is an extensive one as they have played each other 31 times. Price has won 20, Clayton 11. In this year’s PL they have met five times and Price won four. Three of those wins required less than nine legs with scores of 6-1, 6-1 and 6-2. Of their last nine matches, Price has won eight.

This match is a best of 19 leg format and they have played each other twice in this format. The 2021 World Series of Darts quarter final which Clayton won 10-9 and last year’s Masters quarter final which Clayton also won 10-8. They have met in one major semi-final, the 2020 UK Open and it was Price who won that 11-4.

Price A Worthy Fav

There is no doubt that Price deserves to be favourite. He is the better player but he does lose some matches. He has lost three of his last ten, as has Clayton. Two of Price’s three defeats went to a deciding leg and he is very hard to beat. In his last 50 matches, he has hit a ton plus no less than 30 times. In comparison, Clayton’s last 50 saw him hit 17 ton plus averages, very nearly half as many.

There isn’t any clear pattern other than Price has dominated Clayton recently. They have had some very close matches in the longer formats. There has been an 11-10, a 10-8 and 10-9, but also some one sided affairs like that 11-4, another 11-3 and 16-12. The more one sided wins have all been for Price but he did have one close longer format win over the Ferret, an 11-10 win in a World Series event this January.

Ferret To Make Price Work

I get the feeling that if Clayton is to win, it will be very close. He is playing well enough to think that he can make Price at least work hard for a win. Their H2H record, especially this year (6-1), is screaming Price to win, but this will be his first PL semi-final while Clayton has played two. He beat MVG 10-8 in 2021 but lost 4-10 to Cullen last year. However, Price is hardly inexperienced in big matches.

I will take the chance that Clayton’s win at the weekend has set him up to be able to play something close to his A game and that we get a close match. The best of 19 leg semi-final format has been in use for the last eight years. In that time ten of the sixteen semi-finals have required more than 16.5 legs.

2023 Night 17 Premier League Darts Tip: 1 point over 16.5 legs @ 2.10 with Betfair

Michael Smith vs. Michael van Gerwen

Another repeat of this year’s World Championship final, but we have seen a few already. At least this is a longer format. The big question here is about Van Gerwen’s fitness. The fact that he played at the weekend suggests that he is OK, but how did he play? Quite well actually.

He lost his first round match on Saturday but averaged 101 in a 5-6 defeat to Boris Krčmar. On Sunday he reached the fourth round, losing 3-6 to Josh Rock. He averaged 97.9 in that, averaged 97.1 in a 6-5 win over Daryl Gurney in the third round, but averages of 88 and 91 in the first two were not so good. Clearly it wasn’t peak MVG, but he did play and wasn’t terrible.

Van Gerwen has won six of his last ten matches, only hit two ton plus averages and he is not in his best form. He isn’t the main man anymore. He is still one of the main men, but Price is the heavier scorer these days, Smith is the World Champion and he cannot afford to be even a little bit off his game or he can get beaten even by the likes of Krčmar.

Bully Boy Plodding Along

Michael Smith hasn’t taken the world by storm after winning the World Championship. He won the German Darts Grand Prix last month, but many expected the cork to really come out of the bottle with that World Championship but that hasn’t happened.

He has had a fairly light schedule of late, no doubt recharging his batteries with tonight in mind. Smith did not play in last weekend’s Players Championship events and he missed the last Euro Tour event.

He has only played ten matches in May but he won eight of them. His scoring hasn’t been outstanding by his standards but he rarely throws in a stinker. His 180 hitting is a bit of a cause for concern. Over his last 50 matches he has hit just twelve (MVG has hit 16 in his last 50) and Smith’s game is quite dependent on hitting a lot of maximum’s.

MVG Leads H2H

Their H2H record is 39-16 to MVG. However Smith won their last two PL matches and he is 3-2 in 2023, including that World Championship win. Across their last eight matches, Smith has won six. The old days of Van Gerwen domination are over.

Neither man looks to be in top form but Smith has won more of his recent matches than MVG has. Smith has two wins against MVG this month, both 6-4. And then there is the question of MVG’s injury. It is hard to know how much it may affect him. He is going to play obviously, he has to. If he pulled out, Aspinall would have got the fourth place berth and presumably the prizemoney. Even MVG isn’t going to walk away from £10k.

MVG A Slight Underdog

The bookies can’t separate them but you can get 2.00 about MVG while Smith is 1.91. MVG has played nine PL semi-finals and won eight. His only defeat was to Clayton in 2021. Smith has played one and won one, back in 2018.

It is hard to get too involved in a match where one player has a big fitness question mark over them. It is a long match and if his muscle injury starts to hurt, then Smith could run away with it. Otherwise I would expect a close match.

2023 Night 17 Premier League Darts Tip: 1 point over 16.5 legs @ 1.91 with Betfair

We have a large 3 point bet on MVG to win the title which is enough interest for me, but I have to say that I do not think he will do it. This match will be a struggle in itself but If he were to make the final and it was Price he faced, Price wins.

When placing the ante-post bets, Price had a very poor PL record, he hated it and the abuse that came with it, but he has been able to turn that around and he wants to tick the PL box. He is the best player in the world right now and he deserves the favourite tag.

-JamesPunt