We move into the final quarter of the opening stage of the PDC Home Tour on Monday evening as Group 25 of the competition is played out with four men once again battling it out for some lockdown entertainment for us all.
We’ve seen some groups with headline acts and others with a more competitive feel about them and on Monday night it is fair to say we have a mixture of the two on what should be another entertaining evening.
The Format
Each night four players will battle it out in a round robin format with the group winner progressing to the next stage of the tournament. All six matches in each group will be the best of nine legs with two points awarded for a win. If players finish level on points then leg difference will decide the outcome. If that cannot separate players then the head to head will settle the group winner. Were three players to be tied on points and leg difference the player with the highest overall average goes through. The entire tournament is being streamed live on PDC.tv, the Sky Sports App and various bookmaker sites.
Sunday Recap
It was another one of those nights of shambles in the PDC Home Tour on Sunday with problems with Darius Labanauskas messing the schedule up but it did not do Jamie Hughes any harm as he won all three matches without too much fuss. He was only taken to a decider in the final game. Krzysztof Ratajski picked up second place with a couple of wins ahead of Labanauskas who won one of his three matches. Toni Alcinas was the unlucky man on the night. He put in three decent performances but had little to show for his efforts.
Unfortunately the change in schedule did not help our bet on the evening with Jamie Hughes, who admitted before he threw a dart that he hasn’t done much practicing, having his match with Ratajski moved up to be his opener and as such they drew the 180s 1-1 when we needed Hughes to hit the most. Hughes’ scoring got better as the night went on so that was more than a touch unfortunate.
Group 25 Line Up
Keegan Brown is the highest ranked player in the field for this group. He is back for a second go in the competition after his internet fell off a cliff when he first took part. Much of what we said then still apply now in that Brown is still working for the NHS so practice time is likely to have been limited. He didn’t perform particularly well in the one match he did complete on that night so a significant improvement will need to be made if he is going to come through here I suspect. I’m not sure that will come.
Jose de Sousa is the second man in the group as far as the rankings is concerned but for me he is the pick of the players who are on show. He only has one run to the last 16 to show for his efforts this season but he was a machine on the Players Championship events last term, winning two of them and making the final of a third so away from a crowd he can be as good as anyone. That run to the last 16 this year saw him come past Kim Huybrechts and Adrian Lewis so despite Portugal being anything but a hotbed for darts, de Sousa should be taken seriously here.
Robert Thornton is the biggest name in this group but it is a good 4-5 years since we saw the man who was winning PDC majors. His form has been in the doldrums since then and although he showed signs of life at the Grand Slam of Darts last year, the fact he failed to qualify for the World Championship when half of the tour get there by right highlights just how far his game has dropped. Clutch doubles seem to have become a real issue and he soon loses his head when they don’t go in. If the freedom of home surroundings sorts that out he could be a threat but it would need to have done.
Former Development Tour star Reece Robinson is the final man on show in this group. He hasn’t shown his earlier exploits on the main tour in the last couple of seasons and this year he has won just one of nine matches in the eight Players Championship tournaments. We have seen in previous groups that form can be irrelevant and I always say that if you have performed on that Development Tour you must be a decent player so I’m not writing Robinson off completely, however he has plenty to prove.
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Outright Betting
I think Jose de Sousa is the one to beat here but his mysterious checkout routes concern me especially over this distance and I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong end of one of them in what are pretty short races. In saying that though, I’m not really keen on any of the others to take him on with which doesn’t help matters. I didn’t see much from Keegan Brown who looks the most likely to usurp the Portuguese so I can’t really be taking him.
I think it is a sign of how competitive this group is that the two outsiders are only 4/1 shots to win it. If we knew Bob Thornton was on top form then the 4/1 on him would certainly offer some mileage and while I’m keen not to write off Reece Robinson, I do wonder whether he’ll have the required consistency to come through the night unscathed himself. It all leads me to going nowhere near the outright betting.
Match Betting
I will go with one in the match betting though because we have another of those tasty opportunities where a level looking match is priced up evenly. That comes in the match between Reece Robinson and Robert Thornton and it is the youngster who has the throw yet they are 10/11 the pair if you shop around. That suggests that Thornton is considerably better than his younger foe (or the throw hasn’t been taken into account) and I’m not convinced that is the case.
Missed doubles have been a feature of the career of Thornton for a while now and I’m not convinced that is going to change here. Should his scoring let him down on top of that, and we’ve seen a number of seasoned scorers struggle to find the 60 in this thing, then Robinson would have every chance. Robinson might not have shown the best form on the tour this year but his talent is obvious and with the throw on his side in a deciding leg if we go that far, I’ll take him to come out on top here.
Tips
WON – Back R.Robinson to beat R.Thornton for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Boylesports
Back him here:
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