Cullen beats Van Gerwen in Final Premier League Rotterdam

Wim Blokpoel - After 3 long years, the PDC Cazoo Premier League finally returned to Amsterdam Ahoy yesterday, with a massive orange crowd full of Dutch Dartfans!

The night started with James Wade against Peter Wright. There was nothing between them and at 5-5, both missed a matchdart before it was the World Champion Wright who edged Wade out 6-5. Then in the next quarter-final, Joe Cullen took on Gary Anderson. It was a polr game from Cullen, as Anderson went 5-3 up but then the Scotsman totally collapsed and Cullen could come back to 5-5. It was another game where matchdarts were missed, and in the end it was the debutant in Rotterdam Cullen who got over the line 6-5. But this game will mostly be remembered for the fact, that Anderson accused Cullen of cheating after the game which caused a lot of discussions on social media.

Quarter-Final 3 saw another debutant in Rotterdam, defending Premier League Champion Jonny Clayton who took on fellow Welshman Gerwyn Price. For the third game in a row, it was 5-5, and now it was Price who missed matchdarts, as the booing crowd didn’t help him, and Clayton won it 6-5. Quarter-Final 4 was where the crowd was looking forward to, as Dutch hero Michael van Gerwen played Bullyboy Michael Smith. It was a pretty poor game, and at 5-5 Smith missed one matchdart, as Van Gerwen won it 6-5 with his second lowest average ever in the Premier League! 4 times a 6-5, 4 times with the loser missing at least 1 matchdart! 

Into the semi-finals, Cullen played another Scotsman in World Number one Wright. Once again, the standard wasn’t great. But what was new, is that Cullen managed to beat Wright in a major tournament for the very first time! A 6-4 win for Cullen saw him go to the final in Rotterdam on debut. Van Gerwen against Clayton was a very great game though. At 3-3, Van Gerwen hit two 12-darters and one 15-darter to win it 6-3 with a 100+ average! In the final debutant Cullen took on crowd favourite Van Gerwen. Van Gerwen started great, but thanks to brilliant finishes (118 and 97) Cullen stayed in the game at 3-3. At 4-4 Cullen even hit a 144-finish for a 5-4 lead! Van Gerwen did make it 5-5 but in leg 11 Cullen started with two 180’s! The crowd tried to put him off, but it didn’t affect Cullen as he eventually won it 6-5!