2026 PL Darts Night 16 Preview & Tips – JP
2026 PL Darts Night 16 Preview
James Punt was off for Night 15 but he is back in action this Thursday night as the PL roadshow heads to Sheffield. His 2026 PL Darts Night 16 preview and tips are below.
Week Off
I had the last week off, and with the account sitting at -13.80 points, I should have the whole PL campaign off. It’s been a nightmare. It is never good, but rarely that bad.
We are now into the final league stage night of the 2026 season and it is 1st vs. 8th, 2nd vs. 7th and so on. The four semi-finalists have been settled but the order of the semi-finals are still to be established.
Luke Littler is top of the table by seven points from Jonny Clayton, so Littler will be the top seed at the O2 Arena and he will play the player who finishes 4th.
Currently that is Luke Humphries, which would be bad news for our ante post bet on a Littler vs. Humphries final. However, all is not lost. Humphries has hit some very good form and at just the right time. He has been a finalist for the last three nights and finally got a nightly win last week. He also won a Players Championship earlier this week.
Clayton Ten Clear
Clayton is ten points clear of Price and Humphries and will play the player in 3rd place in the league table. Currently, that is Gerwyn Price, whom The Ferret has beaten in their last two PL matches.
Humphries will play MVG in tonight’s quarter final and is the 1.55 favourite to win that, but it might still might not be enough. Humphries is tied with Price on 24 points and from our point of view, he just needs to score one more point than Price to avoid Littler in next week’s semi-final.
Price plays the out of form Gian van Veen and the Welshman is 1.62 to win one. Price would then face the winner of Bunting vs. Clayton. Humphries would face the winner of Littler vs. Rock, a tougher prospect, but Humphries is in top form and beat Littler last week.
We shall just have to wait and see how it all pans out, but the whole night is a bit of a dead rubber, apart from the Humphries – Price scenario.
Jonny Clayton vs. Stephen Bunting
A complete dead rubber as far as Clayton is concerned. He would love to pick up the £10k bonus for winning the night, but it wouldn’t change his league position.
Clayton has only won one PL match in the last three weeks and his overall form sees six wins from his last ten matches. He is playing well enough and was a quarter finalist on Tuesday, to go with a runners up spot in PC16 last week.
Bunting sits in 7th place, five points clear of Rock. With a leg difference of 20 in Bunting’s favour, he looks locked in for his 7th place. However, he is five points behind Van Veen in 6th and has a better leg difference.
So, if Bunting wins the night he should finish 6th and win a further £5k. Bunting has won just one of his last five quarter finals and overall has won six of his last ten matches. He was a quarter finalist on Monday but isn’t playing quite as well as Clayton.
Their H2H record is 15-10 to Clayton and he is 3-1 in this year’s PL matches.
2026 PL Darts Night 16 Tip: 1 point Jonny Clayton to win @ 1.72 with Livescorebet
Gerwyn Price vs. Gian van Veen
Price will be desperate to win this and help his chances of avoiding Littler in next week’s semi-final. He has lost his last eight consecutive matches vs. Littler.
Price has won six of his last ten matches and is playing well, but he isn’t happy with darts right now. Pulling out of the World Cup tells us that. He doesn’t mind playing Van Veen and is 12-3 against the Dutchman. In the PL it is 4-2 to Price.
Gian van Veen is not in good form. He has lost five of his last ten matches and six saw sub 91 averages. In the PL he has won three of his last four semi-finals and he has upped his game on Thursday nights, but his game is way short of his best overall.
Price is the 1.62 favourite and being backed. He should win, but his health is a worry and he can turn up and just be a bit flat, out of the blue. I will sit this one out. No bet.
2026 PL Darts Night 16 Tip: No bet
Luke Littler vs. Josh Rock
A complete dead rubber. Littler will win the league phase, and Rock will finish last. Playing for pride only.
Littler has won nine of his last ten matches, all of them in the PL. Rock has lost five of his last ten matches, but he did win the Austrian Darts Open two weeks ago. In the PL, it is grim reading. Played nineteen and won just four.
Their H2H record is 8-0 to Littler and in the PL 2-0, 6-3 and 6-4. Littler is the 1.26 favourite, Rock 4.00.
It is hard to get enthusiastic about this match. No bet.
2026 PL Darts Night 16 Tip: No bet
Luke Humphries vs. Michael van Gerwen
Both players are recent winners on the floor. MVG won PC15 ten days ago, and Humphries PC17 on Monday, but Humphries is the more consistent player right now and in top form.
His scoring has been excellent all year, but his doubling a problem. It was clear that when he found his confidence on the outer ring, that he would be hard to beat, very hard. Humphries has won his last ten matches, hitting nine ton plus averages.
MVG has won seven of his last ten matches, hitting four ton plus averages, but also five sub 95 and a couple of sub-90’s. He did hit a whopping 122.34 in a 7-0 win over Martin Schindler last week, but he lacks the consistency of Cool Hand.
Their H2H record is 19-18 to Humphries and in this year’s PL 2-2. All four matches were sub 9.5 legs and in the one match where Humphries was better than 33% on the doubles, he won 6-1. That is the kind of result I can see happening on Thursday night.
