2026 PL Darts Night 5 Preview & Tips – JP
2026 PL Darts Night 5 Preview
Tonight we head to Cardiff in Wales for the latest instalment of Premier League Darts action. James Punt’s 2026 PL Darts Night 5 preview and tips are below.
Night 4 Reflections
Night 4 in Belfast was a -1.05 point loss (-1.22 for the tournament to date). Humphries lost to Bunting and while Price did beat MVG, he didn’t cover the -1.5 leg handicap. He just got off to a slow start.
Stephen Bunting won the night and jumped into 5th place in the table, which is still topped by steady Eddie, Jonny Clayton, the only player to still have a 100% quarter final winning record. Josh Rock hit a nine darter but suffered his four straight 2-6 quarter final defeat and remains at the bottom of the table.
This week’s action comes from Cardiff, home soil for Clayton and Price. This is now the closest venue to Minehead, where this weekend’s UK Open starts on Friday (outright preview here and R1-R3 preview here). Traditionally, Exeter was the venue pre Minehead, so this season the PL players will have an earlier start to cross the Severn and head down to the Somerset coast for their fourth-round matches on Friday Evening.
Price won the night here in 2023 and he was runner up in 2024, while Clayton was runner up in 2022, but it has not been a Welsh stronghold overall. Luke Humphries has lost both his quarter final matches here and Luke Littler won the night last year.
Michael van Gerwen vs. Luke Humphries
MVG has lost three of his last five matches, all to Gerwyn Price, two of which were in the PL. Van Gerwen won the opening night (beating Humphries 6-2 in the semi-final). He was runner up in Night 2 but was absent on Night 3 due to illness. He said he was not feeling 100% last week and lost narrowly, 5-6 to Price. He is playing well but just can’t beat Price.
Luke Humphries has won seven of his last ten matches but he is getting frustrated. He averaged 106.29 against Bunting in last week’s QF and lost 4-6 (I was quite frustrated as well). He lost the semi-final of ET1 to Van Veen, lost the semi-final of night 3 again to Van Veen, and lost the final of the World Masters to Littler. He just can’t get the ball over the line, despite playing top class darts. Surely that can’t go on.
Their H2H record is 17-16 to MVG and he has won their last two meetings. However, in PL matches, Humphries is 8-3 up.
Luke Humphries is the 1.54 favourite, MVG 2.60. Seven of their last ten best of 11 leg PL matches have seen over 9.5 legs.
2026 PL Darts Night Tip: 1 point over 9.5 legs @ 2.10 with Bresbet
2026 PL Darts Night Tip: 0.5 point Humphries to win 6-4 @ 6.10 with Livescorebet
Gian van Veen vs. Jonny Clayton
Gian Van Veen has reached three of the four finals so far, but lost all three, which is making him frustrated. He has won seven of his last ten matches, but also lost the final of ET1, so he is not quite getting the rewards he wants. Van Veen is playing at a very high level and very consistently.
Jonny Clayton has won six of his last ten matches but lacks the high-end consistency of Van Veen. He has had five sub 93 averages and he doesn’t normally hit the same heights that Van Veen does as a matter of routine.
Van Veen is the 1.62 favourite, Clayton 2.38. Their H2H record is 3-3 and in 2026 1-1. Clayton has ‘home advantage’, but so did Josh Rock last week, and he went down 2-6 to Van Veen in Belfast. Four of their six matches have been over 9.5 legs and another close match between the top two players in the league would be no surprise.
2026 PL Darts Night Tip: 1 point over 9.5 legs @ 2.02 with Livescorebet
Gerwyn Price vs. Stephen Bunting
It took until Night 9 before Bunting won his first PL match of the season last season. This year, just until Night 4. Like last year, when he finally won a match, he went on to win the night.
Bunting is averaging 100.99 from his six PL matches in 2026. He hasn’t been playing as well outside of the PL, but now that he has broken his duck, he will be more relaxed. However, when he broke his duck last year, he only went on to win four more matches from the last seven nights. That said, he knew back then he was out of the race. This year, he is right back in the fight.
Gerwyn Price has won eight of his last ten matches, but he is doing his best stuff outside of the PL and seems to be much more comfortable on the floor. He is averaging 101.39 on the floor in 2026 and ‘only 98.48’ in the PL.
Their H2H record is 14-9 to Price. In last year’s PL Bunting was 2-1 and all three were over 9.5 legs. Their last seven best of eleven leg marches were over 9.5 legs, and nine of their twelve likewise.
2026 PL Darts Night Tip: 1 point over 9.5 legs @ 2.15 Unibet
Luke Littler vs. Josh Rock
7th and 8th in the league table and Rock remains winless after four successive 2-6 defeats. The PL always seems to produce a player or two who just can’t win matches. Rock’s poor PL form is carrying over to the rest of his matches and he has lost six of his last ten. Having the worst check out rate in the league doesn’t help (29.63%).
Luke Littler has had similar problems on the outer ring (30.51%) and he is starting have problems with the crowds. He certainly didn’t have many fans in Belfast last week. When crowds get on his back, Littler does get bothered and he still hasn’t learned how to just ignore it. He tends to want to give it back and that rarely works.
The PL crowds can be a nasty bunch. They love to try and wind up players they don’t like. Gerwyn Price got it for years, but he tried a bit of a charm offensive and rarely gets much bother these days. I think the crowds are starting to sense that they can make Littler lose.
Weakness
If Littler can just get his head down and get on with it, he should be fine, but if he has a weakness, it is losing the crowd. Littler has lost four of his last ten matches and five of his last six PL matches. That is very unlike him. Outside of the PL, he has won the World Masters, ET1, Saudi Arabian Darts Masters and the World Championship.
The question is, will the Cardiff crowd get on Littler’s back? If he was playing Price or Clayton, then absolutely they would. Littler has played five matches here in Cardiff and won four. He has managed to avoid playing a Welshman and has not had any problems, but are the fans, and the PL fans in particular, just getting a bit sick of Littler?
H2H
Their H2H record is an emphatic 5-0 to Littler. They have played twice already in 2026 and Littler has given Rock a pasting in both. 4-0 in the World Masters and 6-1 on the Euro Tour.
Littler is the 1.29 favourite and Rock 4.00. Littler is the logical selection, maybe he can beat Rock 6-2 to continue the Ulsterman’s wretched run. Or will we see some typical PL counter logic and Rock to get his first PL win, and his first win over Littler? I’ll take a chance on the latter scenario.
