Auckland Darts Masters

The World Series of Darts is heading down under. New Zealand will witness the first arrows to be thrown during the Auckland Darts Masters. The tour then crosses to Australia, visiting Melbourne and Brisbane. The PDC have a strong representation making the trip to the southern hemisphere. Michael van Gerwen, Peter Wright, Rob Cross, Gary Anderson, Simon Whitlock, Kyle Anderson, Michael Smith and Raymond van Barneveld, will all make the journey. They will face a contingent of local qualifiers at each stop.

For the most part, as with other World Series events, the locals are merely cannon fodder. This especially so with Whitlock and Kyle Anderson playing on the PDC side. There are some players who could cause an upset though. Cody Harris, Warren Parry and Corey Cadby could all prove a threat.  Cadby would have definitely have been an outright contender too, had he not had visa problems for this leg.

Lessons from the World Matchplay

The World Matchplay was an incredible tournament. Being the most recent event, it is the most relevant as far as form is concerned. SPORTSvox correctly surmised that bookies favourite Michael van Gerwen, was too short in our preview of the World Matchplay We took him on and that is something that we will be looking to repeat again this week.

The first round exit to Jeffrey De Zwaan was not a major surprise to us and it adds to MVG’s recent woes. Unfortunately for him the antipodean events have never been that kind to the Dutchman, presumably for the same reasons he’s struggled of late.We don’t have 31 of the PDC’s best on our side at odds against this time. However, I don’t mind taking him on now that he’s drawn Cody Harris and could face a ferocious Gary Anderson in the next round.

SPORTSvox Predictions

I would have backed Corey Cadby at around 28/1 until his late withdrawal. So as far as the outright market is concerned I’ll stick with laying MVG at around 4/5. For the match odds Cody Harris is the same price as De Zwaan last week but not quite as tempting at 14/1. Warren Parry faces Barney, as he did last year when narrowly losing 6-4 and can be backed at around 5/1.

Parry has beaten MVG in the past and can prove useful. Whereas for Barney my general rule of thumb is to back him at long odds against and oppose when heavily odds on. If you’ve got some free bets that you need to use up, backing Harris or Parry wouldn’t be the worst idea. I’m just not quite convinced enough to risk real cash on them.