{"id":8817,"date":"2026-03-05T10:40:04","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T05:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/2026\/03\/05\/clayton-eyes-all-welsh-cardiff-premier-league-final\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T10:40:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T05:10:04","slug":"clayton-eyes-all-welsh-cardiff-premier-league-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/2026\/03\/05\/clayton-eyes-all-welsh-cardiff-premier-league-final\/","title":{"rendered":"Clayton eyes all-Welsh Cardiff Premier League final"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ByGareth BaileyBBC Sport Wales<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published8 minutes ago<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Jonny Clayton says it would be amazing to meet fellow Welshman Gerwyn Price in the final on night five of the Premier League Darts in Cardiff.<\/p>\n<p>&#x27;The Ferret&#x27; sits top of the standings after four weeks and is on the opposite side of the draw to Price in the Welsh capital.<\/p>\n<p>Both Welshmen have won a night in this year&#x27;s competition, with Price, 40, triumphing <a href=\"\/sport\/darts\/articles\/clygd0404d2o\">on night two in Antwerp<\/a> and Clayton <a href=\"\/sport\/darts\/articles\/c4g026zjylvo\">on night three in Glasgow.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&quot;Two Welsh boys in the final, that would be amazing,&quot; said 51-year-old Clayton.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Obviously Jonny Clayton picking up the trophy would be a little bit better!<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Hopefully we can do it, fingers crossed we meet in the final.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>The Carmarthenshire native missed out on the previous two years of the Premier League, but says he is excited to return and play in Cardiff this time.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#x27;ve been away from the Premier League for a couple of years now,&quot; Clayton told BBC Sport Wales.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#x27;m back in and back in Wales playing, so that&#x27;s all I want, my favourite tournament, my favourite city.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;There&#x27;s no better support than the Welsh. There&#x27;s only one major in Wales and it&#x27;s the Premier League night, to be a part of that in front of your own crowd is fantastic. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;It&#x27;s going to be mental, it&#x27;s going to be exciting, singing, chanting and they&#x27;re all behind us [me and Price] for a change. We&#x27;re looking forward to this big time.&quot;<\/p>\n<h2>Taking aim at a Premier League double<\/h2>\n<p>Clayton won the Premier League title <a href=\"\/sport\/darts\/57270163\">in his debut year in 2021<\/a>, beating Portugal&#x27;s Jose de Sousa 11-5 in the final, something he is looking to do again.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;All I can do is to go out and try to play my best darts and if I can carry on doing that I&#x27;m doing something right.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;If it&#x27;s my campaign it&#x27;ll be my campaign. Hopefully it is and I can be double Premier League champion.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>With a highly competitive field of eight players which includes four world champions, you could be forgiven for not expecting the former plasterer to be top of the standings after four weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Neither Luke Littler nor Luke Humphries have made the final in any of the four nights of action in 2026, despite being ranked number one and two in the world.<\/p>\n<p>Clayton, however, has been the model of consistency in the 2026 tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Winning his quarter-final match each week has ensured he has left with at least two points at each venue, the only player to have done so.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#x27;ve been in the Premier League before so I know what you have to do,&quot; he said, &quot;It&#x27;s a bit of experience on my behalf. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;Points are so important whether it&#x27;s just the two points or it&#x27;s five points, if you can pick up two every week you&#x27;ll be close at the end of the 16th week for the 17th week [play-offs].&quot;<\/p>\n<p>He says consistency week-on-week is really important.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Picking up nightly wins is a massive bonus,&quot; added Clayton.. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#x27;ve got one under my belt, hopefully there is one Thursday night, and I can still be at the top when it comes to week 17.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Clayton takes on World Championship runner-up Gian van Veen in the quarter-finals on Thursday, with the pair splitting their past meetings.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We&#x27;re one win each but he&#x27;s at my home in Wales so hopefully that will be to my advantage and Gian can experience the proper Welsh crowds. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#x27;m looking forward to this, he&#x27;s a great kid, a brilliant player and I&#x27;m sure it&#x27;ll be a good game.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>You can follow live text commentary from night four of the Premier League on Thursday on the BBC Sport website and app.<\/p>\n<p>Thursday, 5 March &#8211; Utilita Arena, Cardiff<\/p>\n<p>Quarter-finals<\/p>\n<p>Michael van Gerwen v Luke Humphries<\/p>\n<p>Gian van Veen v Jonny Clayton<\/p>\n<p>Gerwyn Price v Stephen Bunting<\/p>\n<p>Luke Littler v Josh Rock<\/p>\n<p>Semi-finals<\/p>\n<p>Van Gerwen\/Humphries v Van Veen\/Clayton<\/p>\n<p>Price\/Bunting v Littler\/Rock<\/p>\n<p>Final<\/p>\n<p>Van Gerwen\/Humphries\/Van Veen\/Clayton v Price\/Bunting\/Littler\/Rock<\/p>\n<h2>Related topics<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/darts\">Darts<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/wales\">Wales Sport<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>More on this story<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/darts\/articles\/c3edypxvx31o\">\n<p>Premier League Darts 2026 fixtures, results and table<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published6 days ago<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/darts\/articles\/c4g5zj97w42o\">\n<p>Bunting silences critics with win in Belfast<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published6 days ago<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Clayton eyes all-Welsh Cardiff Premier League finalImage source, Taylor Lanning\/PDCImage caption, Jonny Clayton beat Gian van Veen 6-2 in Glasgow to win night three of this year&#x27;s Premier League&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-decor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}