Premier League Darts 2024 Dublin Odds: Cool Hand going for the Hat-trick

The Premier League roadshow heads to the 3Arena in Dublin on Thursday night (19:00). World Champion Luke Humphries has gone back-to-back in the last two weeks to rise to the top of the table. Our Darts expert Sean Rafferty previews this one and gives us his predictions for the evenings action. 

Draw

Luke Humphries vs Peter Wright

Nathan Aspinall vs Rob Cross

Michael van Gerwen vs Gerwyn Price

Luke Littler vs Michael Smith

2pts Luke Humphries to win night eight @ 9/4

Cool Hand Luke has finally managed to hit top gear in this years Premier League, which has seen him win the last two weeks. In this run, he’s averaged 101+ in five of his six matches, a top level that everyone else will struggle to match.

He faces Wright first which is probably the easiest fixture he could’ve asked for based on current form. He’ll then face the winner of Cross/Aspinall and he’s beat the pair of them in the previous two weeks of PL.

Humphries has managed to get himself to the top of the league table and this is a great chance to really cement his spot in the top four for Finals Night, whilst momentum is well on his side. 9/4 is a decent price for the hat-trick.

Luke Humphries -2.5 Hcp vs Peter Wright

As I touched on above, Humphries is the man to beat at the moment, having dominated his PL rivals the past two weeks. Last week is an easy piece of form to use straight away - Cool Hand thrashed Peter 6-1 in the semi finals of Night 7 with a 107 average.

I haven’t seen enough from Snakebite this week on the Pro Tour to suggest he has enough in his locker currently, to really challenge Humphries in this match - he averaged below 93 in five of his six matches played at Players Championship events 5 and 6 at the start of the week. He’s going to need to find a much greater level to win 4+ legs.

Humphries feels odds on to average above a ton every time he steps up the oche just now (has averaged 101+ in seven of his last eight matches) - I feel that level will see him run out a very comfortable winner in this one.

Michael van Gerwen under 2.5 180's vs Gerwyn Price

MVG has been struggling to find his best game for a number of weeks now, you could actually argue his best performance of the lot was in a 6-2 drubbing at the hands of Luke Littler last week, where he did average 111 himself (yes you read that right, he won two out of eight legs with a 111 average!).

I didn’t see enough from MVG earlier in the week to suggest he’s going to hit top form tomorrow night. These PC events were a good opportunity for him to get back in the winners enclosure with several big names absent from them (Humphries, Littler, Price) but he didn’t make it past the last 16 in either event. Van Gerwen only averaged 100+ in two of his eight matches and also averaged below 90 in his two defeats.

I was tempted to take Price to win at 11/10 but his form has been indifferent and his recent record against MVG doesn’t really lure me in. Instead I’ve opted for the Green Machine to hit under 2.5 180s - he has hit under 2.5 180s in 10 of his last 13 matches, so just shy of evens is a beauty of a price and looks the best value in this match.

The Double has been generously boosted from 2/1 to 9/4 by the Betfred traders.