Preview Premier League Darts Night Five Cardiff: Van Gerwen and Humphries clash as Price and Clayton headline on home soil

On Thursday evening, March 5, the fifth night of the Premier League Darts 2026 is on the agenda. This week the players head to Cardiff, Wales. That means a home crowd for both Gerwyn Price and Jonny Clayton.

The Premier League Darts once again uses the now familiar mini-tournament format. Each night features a knockout bracket with quarterfinals, semifinals, and a final. Players collect points per night based on their results. After sixteen regular rounds, the top four in the standings qualify for the play-offs at the end of May. That is where the Premier League champion is ultimately decided.

In Cardiff, the nightly winner pockets a £10,000 bonus alongside five points for the table. The runner-up earns three points, while the losing semifinalists add two points to their tally. Players who lose in the quarterfinals leave empty-handed.

Over the past three years since this new format was introduced, we have seen three different winners in Cardiff. In 2023 it was Gerwyn Price who claimed the night on home soil by beating Nathan Aspinall in the final. A year later ‘The Iceman’ reached the final again, but this time he lost to Michael Smith. Last year the current world champion Luke Littler took the spoils by defeating Michael van Gerwen 6-4.
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We start the night with a blockbuster between Michael van Gerwen and Luke Humphries. Van Gerwen has opened his 2026 Premier League campaign strongly. The Dutchman won the opening night and reached the final again a week later, putting him on 8 points early. He had to skip week three in Glasgow for medical reasons and thus earned no points. Last week ‘Mighty Mike’ returned despite not being fully recovered and narrowly lost his first match of the night to Gerwyn Price. That leaves him on eight points after four nights, putting him third.

Humphries has had a slower start to the Premier League this year. The defending champion has collected just 4 points and is yet to reach a final. On the first night he lost to Van Gerwen in the semifinals, and a week later he fell at the first hurdle to Luke Littler. On Night 3 he again went out in the semifinals, before Stephen Bunting proved too strong in the quarterfinals last week with a 6-4 win. A disappointing start for ‘Cool Hand Luke’, who now faces a Van Gerwen that, illness aside, has begun this Premier League well.

Head-to-head it is tight. In 33 meetings Van Gerwen has won 17, while Humphries has come out on top 16 times. In the Premier League alone, however, Humphries holds a clear edge. He has won 8 of their 11 clashes in this competition, though the most recent went to the Dutchman.

Next up is a repeat of the Night 3 final in Glasgow. Gian van Veen gets the chance to avenge his defeat to Jonny Clayton, who edged the title match two weeks ago. Both Van Veen and Clayton have started their Premier League campaigns strongly, but in the Dutchman’s case it is especially impressive. ‘The Giant’ is making his Premier League debut this year and has already reached three finals in four nights. The only thing missing for Van Veen is a nightly win, as he has lost all three finals. Thanks to his consistency he is already on nine points, which puts him second in the table.

Only one man sits above him: Jonny Clayton. ‘The Ferret’ has won his opening match on each of the first four nights, then fell in the semifinals three times. On Night 3 he did reach the final, where he faced Van Veen. The Welshman clinched his first nightly win there and now leads the standings with 11 points. Playing on home soil this Thursday will likely give Clayton an extra boost as he looks to add a second nightly victory in Cardiff.

If we go by the head-to-head record, there are no clear favourites. Van Veen and Clayton have faced each other six times in total, and with three wins apiece that statistic is balanced. However, the Welshman did win their most recent Premier League meeting in his favour.

In addition to Clayton, we have a second player competing on home soil this Thursday: Gerwyn Price. In his first match of the night he meets last week’s winner, Stephen Bunting. Price has made a solid start to his Premier League, with his night win on the second evening accounting for a large share of his 7 points. Beyond that, he only managed to win his opening match last week. Still, Price has delivered strong performances in recent years when the Premier League stopped in Cardiff, so he will be eager once again tonight to pick up points.

First, though, he must get past Stephen Bunting, who came out of nowhere last week to win Night 4. The Bullet, just like last year, started his campaign poorly and failed to win a single match across the first three nights. In Belfast last week, however, a rampant Bunting appeared, who, helped by two averages well over 106, convincingly reached the final. There he beat Gian van Veen 6-2 for his first nightly win of 2026 in this competition. The question now is whether he can hit that level consistently.

Looking at their head-to-head, Price holds a slight edge. Of the 23 prior meetings, Price won 14 while Bunting came out on top 9 times. They have met only three times in the Premier League, and there it is Bunting who has won two of those three encounters.

Finally we get Luke Littler against Josh Rock, the two players currently occupying the bottom two places in the table. This is especially surprising in Littler’s case. The 19-year-old has had a difficult start to his Premier League campaign and has yet to reach a final. He lost his opening match twice (Nights 1 and 4), and on the second night he lost his semi-final to Michael van Gerwen. On Night 3 he also benefited from Van Gerwen withdrawing due to illness, which handed him 2 points for free. He therefore only had to start in the semi-finals that night, but still lost tamely 6-1 to Jonny Clayton. Things are not clicking yet for The Nuke, who sits seventh with 4 points.

The same can be said for debutant Josh Rock. The Northern Irishman embarked on this adventure upbeat and confident, but after four nights he is still stuck on that dreaded zero points. One small bright spot for Rocky came last week on Night 4 in Belfast, his home country. Although he again lost his opening match, this time to Gian van Veen, he did throw a nine-darter in front of his home crowd. Even so, Rock will hope to finally get off the mark in Cardiff. And strange as it may sound, given his Premier League struggles, Littler might currently be the ideal opponent for that.

The Northern Irishman should avoid dwelling too much on his head-to-head with the world champion. Of their five meetings, Rock has not won a single one. In the last two he was nowhere near. There has to be a first time for Rock at some point, and who knows, it might just happen on this Premier League night in Cardiff.